


where the lights are

by nadin



Category: Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, WW84, i'm here to give them all the happy endings, they both deserve better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 59,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28628256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadin/pseuds/nadin
Summary: At the sound of her heels on the marble floor, the man whipped around, his face pale and his mouth a little slack, opening and closing without a sound.She watched a faint frown appear between his brows."Diana?"A hundred years after his death, Steve Trevor crashes back into Diana's life when she least expects it, and they finally-finally-get their much-deserved second chance.
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor
Comments: 192
Kudos: 322





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, look, I know I still owe you the last chapter and epilogue for **[A Road Paved In Gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11508576/chapters/25824168)**. We'll get there, I swear. I've been having some creative difficulties there, but we'll get there. 
> 
> In the meantime... I started working on this story soon after the plot first leaked, so... while it still requires some work (okay, quite a bit of work), a massive chunk of it is already complete. Yay! I'm still unsure about the chapter breaks but I'm expecting there to be around 25-28 chapters, approximately, although please don't hold it against me if it gets derailed at some point :P It's rated T for now, but I will change it to M once we get there. 
> 
> Without spoiling anything, I'm just going to say that I kept a couple of things from WW84 and disregarded the rest (sorry, not sorry). No creepy possessions, obviously.

**_Prologue_ **

_Washington DC, 1984_

Diana landed softly on the balcony outside of her apartment, her boots barely making a sound on the concrete ledge that circled the entire building. She didn’t want to disturb the stillness of the night that had fallen over the city.

She pulled at the balcony door — it was kept unlatched at all times to provide for more convenient comings and goings, should the need arise unexpectedly. It gave easily, sliding open without a sound, the inside of her apartment drowning in shadows. A place of comfort that didn’t feel like one, not anymore.

She lingered just outside, listening carefully, although what for, she wasn’t sure anymore. But nothing moved, nothing stirred, and the dissonance between that and the storm raging inside of her made her breath catch a little and her mind swim.

She stepped through the doorway and paused again, eyes moving over the dark shapes of furniture — a quilt draped over the back of the couch, a bookshelf pushed against the wall. Silent witnesses without a life of their own.

It was the silence that caught Diana off guard, more than anything else. As though someone had flipped a switch, bringing everything to a sudden halt.

After the fight was over; after the blood had stopped pumping through her veins in earnest and when the taste on her tongue was no longer of ash, it was the silence and stillness, so unnatural and abrupt, that had landed on her like a blow. The emptiness that the broken spell had left behind so consuming it threatened to turn her inside out.

She waited for the feeling to leave but it seemed to have followed her home, as well.

Steve’s watch was sitting near a framed photograph. His picture—a newspaper clipping meant to keep his name remembered—on the shelf above it, his smile bright and open and infectious. And like every other time Diana looked at it, her chest constricted with longing.

The Dreamstone had never brought him back, it had only allowed Diana to believe what she had wanted to believe. What she had wanted to believe for so long that she had been willing to accept an illusion for reality, her dreams for possibility, and sacrifice everything in order to hold on to them.

A fool.

A desperate, broken-hearted fool grasping at straws and letting a madman pull at her strings, using her like a puppet.

She moved inside, the air around her thick, making her feel like she was walking through water. There was a cup he had left on the table the morning she had taken him shopping. Yet, there was no smell of him lingering in the room—she hadn’t expected it to still be there, but the absence of it slashed across her senses all the same.

Her shoulder throbbed a little. The four parallel marks left by the swipe of Cheetah’s paw had stopped bleeding, but Diana was still aware of them, a little mad at herself for letting her guard down enough for the strike to land, a little grateful for the distraction from the gnawing ache eating her up from the inside.

The wound had started to close up already. In another hour, there would be no trace of it left, and just like everything else that had to do with Barbara Ann and who she used to be, it would simply become another chapter of Diana’s life that she knew there was no going back to.

She could see it now, small things she should have noticed before but was too swept away to pick up on. How all of their conversations seemed to be only about their shared memories, as though he had not lived prior to meeting her. How each time she had brought up his friends, he would only speak of the things she knew already. How he had seemed to brush off her words about visiting his family, his childhood home, as though it was nothing.

But it was not the case, Diana was realizing now. Each wish made on the stone created by the God of Lies had a twist to it. She had gotten Steve Trevor back except it had not been him, not really.

It had been merely someone — some _thing —_ constructed out of her memories entirely. Everything he had said to her was something she had wanted to hear. The things she had seen in him were the things she had expected to see.

Diana’s gaze travelled over the room and landed on a photograph she had placed on the nightstand only yesterday. One that was meant to be of her and Steve, snapped by a passer-by in a park—because he had never seen a portable camera before, and she wanted so desperately to make him part of this world.

Where there had been two people before, Diana was alone now, her smile relaxed and happy but the person who had made it so nowhere to be seen. The spot beside her was empty, capturing instead a couple sitting on a picnic blanket in the background. (She hadn’t noticed them on the day the photo was taken.)

Her stomach clenched, coiling into a tight knot, stealing her breath away and leaving her feeling sick.

Not real. Never had been.

She could feel him still—feel the touch of his hands, the smell of skin when she would press her face to his neck. But even those memories, despite startling clarity in the middle, felt like they were brittle around the edges. The harder she tried to hold on to them and bring them into focus, the faster they crumbled.

With numb fingers, Diana picked up a pillow from the bed. One from Steve’s side. She pressed her face to it, inhaling deeply, but there was nothing but the smell of fresh linen on it.

She wondered then, absently and without much care, if there was anyone whose wish hadn’t come true with a catch to it. Or if everyone who had fallen prey to Maxwell Lord’s cruel scheme had had something dear to them twisted into something ugly and painful in a game set up by a maniac?

Diana dropped the pillow as if it burned her.

There was a shirt draped over the footboard of the bed. She reached for it, surprised to realize it was not hers. Instead, it was one of the few garments she had purchased for Steve the week prior. One she had picked because she had thought it brought out the blue of his eyes so nicely.

Diana trailed her fingers along its collar, soft cotton smooth against her skin.

The one thing that she hadn’t expected, hadn’t seen coming even after everything she had lived through it the first time she had lost him, was how completely and utterly gone a person could become in just a split of a second.

She had thought, back in 1918, that nothing could ever possibly hurt more than it had when she had watched Steve’s plane go up in flames, a supernova in the pitch-black sky ripping her in half from the inside. But now that this moment had come, his presence but a memory once again, and her heart was tearing at the seams once more, her chest so tight with grief she could barely take a breath for fear of ceasing to exist.

_I can save today. You can save the world._

He had remained true to his word, on that wretched day sixty-six years ago. But close to seven decades later, Diana was no closer to the mission that Steve had put upon her than she had been on the day when he had climbed into that plane to give her the few more precious moments she’d needed to defeat the God of War.

_The world needs you, Diana. You know what you need to do._

She repeated Steve’s words in her head.

(Or were they her own, spoken from the depths of her mind? She couldn’t trust anything he had said to her, for all of it was born out of her wishful thinking and desperation. Every smile he had brought out, every confession had been nothing but her desire for something she could never have.)

For the first time in her life, she wondered if it was true.

She has been raised to believe that the world needed her, them, the Amazons. That they were brought to life with a mission to make it a better place. But she didn’t see it anymore, and maybe she hadn’t for a long time.

Her hands curled around his shirt. She took a step back. And then another one. And then one more until she reached the far wall. She slid to the floor, the silent making of a sob trying to rip its way out of her chest, her throat tight and burning with tears that were still to come.

Diana dropped her head in her hands, her fingers still curled over fistfuls of the soft cotton, and buried her face in it as tears spilled at last. She could smell him still, not caring if the scent was there or if it was merely her mind continuing to play tricks on her in an attempt to save her sanity from spiralling into an abyss of despair.

She breathed him in, her tears soaking the fabric as she begged the night to give him back to her.

But this time, no one heard her.

_**Chapter 1** _

_Paris, 2018_

Steve lets go of her hands and steps forward, transfixed. The planes sitting on the dark airfield are nothing out of the ordinary to Diana, but to him—she can’t imagine.

This is what she must have looked like when she stepped off the boat that had brought her to this world and onto the busy streets of London, unsure where to look first or how to take it all in. She smiles, watching him as his gaze moves around slowly, his jaw a little slack in awe. She would have teased him about that, or about forgetting her in an instant if the look on his face wasn’t so endearing that it makes her heart hurt.

“You wanna choose?”

“This one!”

He steps towards one of the jets, reaching his hand over to touch the polished wing of the plane before him. A tug of concern arches through Diana’s chest, the memory from the past tugging at her heart. She pushes it away, pressing her lips around a smile, delighted by Steve’s excitement.

And then the plane explodes and a wave of heat is tossing her backwards as his voice calling her name pierces the air—

Diana woke up as a scream tore its way out of her throat, the heat of the fire chasing her all the way from the dream. Her skin was clammy with cold sweat, her hands twisted around fistfuls of the sheet that was tangled around her body, reminding her of the tanker treads that had once kept her from rushing after Steve, a hundred years ago.

With her heart pounding against the inside of her ribs, she forced her hands to unclench. Her throat was tight, each breath a struggle. She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, willing the crazy gallop of her heartbeat to slow down.

That day, in the Air and Space Museum, there had been no explosion and no one got hurt, but it didn’t stop her mind from taking a good memory and tangling it into a knot with an older one, one that had shattered her world once.

Diana had stopped wondering if nightmares would ever let her be a long time ago.

She sat up slowly, rubbing a tired hand down her face before turning towards the nightstand where the clock read 4:27 AM. Two hours before she needed to be out of bed. On instinct, she turned to the other side of her bed, running her hand over the cold sheets, the pillow untouched. After the war, she used to reach for Steve in her sleep almost nightly, the ache of finding the spot empty making her want to fold in on herself and cease to be.

It had taken her decades to break out of a habit forged by only one night. In 1984, the instinct had returned, together with the disappointment that would settle in her stomach each time she had found no one there. Or, even worse, someone _else_ there. Someone who was not Steve.

Diana pulled her hand back.

She sighed and pushed the covers aside, sliding onto the cool floor. She got dressed in the semi-darkness dispersed by nothing but the faint light from the street lights streaming through the thin curtains on her window, choosing to forgo turning on the lamp. She twisted her hair into a knot near the nape of her neck and picked up her phone from the nightstand. Sleep wasn’t an option, her mind too wired and restless despite the busy day behind her and the busier one ahead.

In the hallway, she paused, considering making herself a cup of tea. But the idea wasn’t appealing, the aftershocks of adrenaline rush brought on by her nightmare pushing her forward. A familiar sensation that had often brought her to the training beach on Themyscira, although for entirely different reasons. Funny how some things never changed. At the front door, she slid her feet into a pair of running shoes and grabbed her keys from the bowl on the table.

She took the elevator to the ground floor and walked past the empty concierge desk. Diana could hear the TV working in the small room behind it, but neither the whirr of the cables, nor the quiet ding of the elevator doors sliding open had disturbed Andre, the stately man in his 60s who often worked the night shift, for which she was grateful. She was not up for exchanging customary pleasantries when she felt so out of sorts.

She headed past the desk and towards the door at the back of the main foyer leading to the residential gym, the soles of her shoes squeaking quietly on the marble floors.

The gym was dark and empty at this time of day and would remain so for another hour, at least. Enough for her to find her peace of mind once more, for however long it would last.

She closed the door behind her and turned on the light.

There had been a time when Diana would have scoffed at the idea of one day missing Antiope’s gruelling routines that would rouse her and her sisters before dawn and chase them out of their beds and into the cool morning. Muscles aching and lungs burning, they would fight their way into a new day, their pride over belonging to something great not stopping them from sharing teasing comments about Antiope and Phillipus trying to run them into their graves.

These days, Diana would have gladly given up her immortality for another morning on that beach, the fog hanging close over the sea. For another day on the training ground, the smell of grass permeating her senses and the sound of a demanding voice rising above them: “Again! Do it again!”

This room was nothing like that, of course. It smelled of rubber mats and metal and that peculiar scent of recycled air pushed through the vents, not of sea and grass and sun-bleached rock. But the physical exertion was enough to switch off her mind, put the demands of her body first until the balance was restored and she no longer had to breathe around the longing sitting on her chest like a stone. One that she knew could never be sated.

In her days of close involvement with the Justice League a couple of years ago, when she had stayed in Bruce’s house when her presence in Gotham had been required, Diana would run around the lake, taking the path that snaked between the old trees. She preferred that; the soft ground beneath her feet, an obstacle course of rocks and roots sticking from the ground and sharp turns where nature wouldn’t allow for a straight passage.

It was nothing like Themyscira, but in odd ways, be it the early morning fog, or the peace that could only be found away from the hustle and bustle of a big city, or the proximity of water, it reminded her of home anyway. In that particular regard, Paris had never quite felt the same. 

But those days were gone, that partnership which had been born out of desperation having long unravelled. She had not set her foot in Gotham in over six months now, and though Barry texted her several times a week and she spoke with Clark and Lois regularly, it was not the same.

Part of her wasn’t sure if she wanted it to be. Diana wondered sometimes if it falling apart had anything to do with what had happened between her and Bruce, or if maybe the Justice League was merely never meant to last, to begin with. She would return to help them if they needed her, and she knew that they knew that. Just like she knew they would look for an excuse not to call her.

By the time the gym door opened again, this time to let a young woman in a pink top in, Diana was breathless and panting, a film of sweat clinging to her skin and her mind clear, her equilibrium restored.

She gave the small customary smile of acknowledgement when the woman’s eyes skated over her as she headed towards the door.

“You’re an early bird, Mademoiselle Prince,” the concierge smiled at her when Diana passed his desk.

She smiled back and inquired about his health. Small moments that reminded her that she was part of this world, connected to other people in small, intangible ways.

The elevator arrived and Diana stepped inside. She checked her phone, not surprised to find a few messages already waiting for her attention. One from a curator in Milan, inquiring about some items to be sent to the Louvre and the logistics of the process. Diana forwarded it to her assistant, making a mental note to follow up on it later. Two more were from an archaeologist in Cairo doing some work for the museum. Not her department but she requested to be in the loop, and they had no reason to refuse though she knew it had to have raised some curious eyebrows.

She skimmed over the attached document, intrigued by the finds but disappointed that they had nothing to do with the reason behind her involvement. A personal one that she was aware would be frowned upon if it was to become known. She would respond later, thank them, ask them to keep her posted as they proceeded. Maybe it wasn’t going to be a dead-end, after all.

The last message was from Barry, a dancing cat image—someone had put a sad-looking cat face on a person wearing a Batsuit. Maybe even an actual photograph of Bruce snatched by a curious onlooker while he was on patrol. Something that Barry had explained to her with great seriousness a couple of years back was called _a meme._

It made Diana smile, despite everything. Despite even the pang of longing that seeing his name had brought on.

She stepped out of the elevator onto her floor and unlocked her apartment door, placing the keys back in the bowl.

She would call him later today, Diana decided. He always seemed to welcome it. Of them all, Barry was, perhaps, the one who missed their time as a team the most, and because it was her decision to walk away that had nearly ended the League, Diana felt partly responsible over having taken it from him, even if at the time, she hadn’t seen any other way.

She put the kettle on, leaving the phone on the kitchen counter, and headed to the shower. By the time she stepped out of the bathroom, the sun had begun its slow ascent over the rooftops stretching all the way to the horizon outside the small balcony in her bedroom. Whatever aftertaste of the dream that had been still lingering in her head even after an hour at the gym seemed to be gone, at last. And like the many other times it happened in the past, she chose not to dwell on it.

 _Your mind will always play tricks on you, Diana,_ her mother used to say when Diana was little, as a way of explaining dreams as well as nightmares. _But as long as you remember who you are, they can’t hurt you._

She had taken consolation from those words, when she was little. Now, each time she remembered them, there seemed to be an ominous tint to them that she couldn’t quite see past.

After what had happened in 1984, she could no longer trust her mind at all. But that was done now, the spell broken, the truth restored. Maxwell Lord had died seven years ago, a heart attack that had caught him by surprise in the middle of a dinner that he had never gotten to finish. She didn’t like to acknowledge it, but the news had brought her a jolt of satisfaction. Knowing that that man could never try to bend the world to his will again had settled something inside of her, though it hardly felt like closure. Not yet.

By the time she returned to the kitchen, dressed for work, there were three more messages waiting for her. From Celeste, her assistant, this time, who seemed to have had as early a start today as Diana.

Diana made herself a cup of tea and sent Celeste a quick text, promising that she was on her way and that they would sort it all out shortly. If only she could say the same about her restless mind, but Diana kept that thought to herself.

The rest of the day was a blur of phone calls and reports and sorting out a collection that had arrived the previous evening so it could be put on display and opened for the public. There were questions to be answered and shipments to be arranged. She asked Celeste to book her a ticket to Rome and to pick up their lunches afterwards, revelling in the hectic pace that no one would suspect a museum, of all places, of maintaining.

The call from Bruce came that same evening, when the lights in the main galleries were dimmed and most of the staff had left for the night.

Diana was in her office catching up on cataloguing, a cup of coffee from the coffee shop across the street sitting by her laptop when her phone chimed.

She paused at the sight of Bruce’s name on the screen, surprised. They kept in touch, in a way. Often through brief texts when he wanted to alert her about something happening on her side of the ocean, whenever someone needed help and he was way too far to be of real assistance. A lot of the time, it was not necessary—Diana had her own ways of staying informed, but she never had the heart to tell him that.

Once or twice, she suspected that there was something else behind it all. That maybe he had other motives behind wanting to speak with her. But he had never veered off-topic, ending their conversations as soon as they ran their course and never bringing up anything personal.

In the end, she decided that that was it—a flimsy sort of bond that extended to nothing else but their secret lives.

Yet, try as she might, she couldn’t recall him ever calling her. Couldn’t imagine why he would want to do it now.

Briefly, Diana contemplated letting it go to voicemail, but it could be an emergency. The thought made her reach for her phone.

“Bruce,” she said, trying to keep her voice level.

 _“Hey,”_ he echoed on the other end of the line. _“Is this a good time?”_

_For what?_

She leaned back away from the desk, a half-filled form describing a 1500-year-old vase on the screen before her. He didn’t sound alarmed, much to her relief. Her heartbeat settled some.

“Yes, of course.”

There was a pause hanging on the line for a few moments, reminding her why they were not into calls, to begin with. You couldn’t notice those moments filled with uncertainty in text messages. When Bruce spoke again, it was not what she had been expecting, either, throwing her off once more.

 _“I found something you’ve been looking for,”_ he said.

Diana raised an eyebrow, though she knew he couldn’t see it, surprised that he would know what she was after when half the time she didn’t know it herself.

“How do you know what I’m looking for?” she asked.

He let out a small chuckle. Even from across thousands of miles, she could feel him relax.

_“Small world. And ours is smaller still.”_

“And full of ears, it seems,” she murmured. “What is it?”

 _“A pendant,”_ he said. _“With a stone that is rumoured to have something trapped inside of it. I’m sure you know the details better than I do, I’m just a… delivery boy, if you please.”_

Diana froze, her heart slamming against her ribs once, twice, three times. It could be the wrong one, a small voice in the back of her mind told her. She had been wrong before, and though disappointment had a bitter taste to it, she’d prefer to keep her hopes down for the time being.

Still, this was not the description that could apply to many things, she knew that.

“How did you find it?” Diana asked, straining to hear his answer past the roar of blood in her ears.

 _“Asked around,”_ Bruce replied, succinct as per usual. She could oh so clearly imagine him shrugging, as though to ask—how else? _“It appeared that John Constantine was in possession of something just like it.”_

His tone flattened some.

“And he just gave it to you?”

_“Well, I had to ask nicely and attach a check to my request, but he didn’t put up much of a fight.”_

Now there was amusement in his tone that made the corner of Diana’s mouth quirk a little.

 _“I mailed it to you, express courier should be arriving tonight,”_ he continued. She could hear him moving about, and imagined him pacing the Batcave, restless and unable to keep still. _“I’m assuming you’re still at work?”_

Diana glanced at her laptop, then at her coffee that had probably gone cold.

“What if I wasn’t?”

_“It would be a shame. He would have to come back tomorrow.”_

She didn’t like it. That someone would know what she was after felt intrusive somehow. That it had reached Bruce’s ears made her feel like she had slipped though she knew it was not her fault. Bruce Wayne had his own ways of knowing things, ways that she couldn’t and didn’t want to control.

Diana thought of the last—and only—thing that he had sent to her. Her eyes drifted to the safe in the wall on a will of their own. It had been a while since she managed to bring herself to take out the suitcase and look at the glass plate of a photograph inside. Each time she did that, it had made her feel raw and aching, so she had stopped, choosing to hold on to her memories of Steve instead.

And now this.

She wondered if Bruce knew why she had spent the past year looking for that pendant, but she knew that asking that was pointless. He either didn’t know, or he would lie, and without seeing his face, she wouldn’t be able to know which one it was.

“How much did you pay?” Diana asked, her voice practical.

 _“Don’t,”_ he breathed. _“I didn’t do it for that.”_

“You didn’t buy it for yourself.”

 _“You don’t owe me anything, Diana. It’s a favour, we don’t bill for those, remember?”_ A pause. _“It should be arriving within the next hour. I just wanted to tell you it was coming.”_

She stayed quiet, trying to convince herself she didn’t hear the hurt in his tone that he had fought hard to mask. It made her own frustration ebb. Bruce had his methods that she didn’t always agree with but Diana didn’t doubt that whatever he had done, he had good intentions behind it.

(Again, she was reminded of having never asked how he had found the photograph. And now here was something else that would make her feel indebted to him even if he would never accept her attempt to make them even.)

“Thank you,” she said, softly.

The pause hung between them, unsaid words and the conversation they had never had but probably should have. She doubted this was the right time to bring it up, though.

She wanted to ask him how he was doing, if he was sleeping enough, if he worked as much as she remembered and whether he was careful in the streets of Gotham. But it was neither her place nor her right to do so. So she pressed her lips together as the silence stretched between them.

 _“Sure,”_ he said, after another moment.

“Good night, Bruce.”

After the call was over, Diana leaned back in her chair. She let out a slow breath and rubbed her eyes as she tried to put her thoughts in order.

Thirty-four years ago, in 1984, the Dreamstone, the wishing stone that Maxwell Lord had used to send half of the world into utter chaos, had not been the thing behind Barbara Ann’s transformation into Cheetah. Not entirely. When the spell brought on by the stone had been broken, shattering the illusion of Steve’s return and reversing everything it had affected to the way it used to be, it had not reversed the creature that Barbara Ann had become back into her real self. She had fled, never to be heard from or seen again, the curse that had turned her into Cheetah keeping her hidden away from prying eyes.

To date, Diana had failed to track her down though she had made numerous attempts, at first in anger, hurt by the betrayal of someone whom she had considered a friend. Later, out of a sense of duty, blaming herself for what had happened to Barbara Ann and desperate to stop any pain that Cheetah’s thirst for blood was sure to inflict on the innocent.

 _We can’t save everyone_ , Steve had told her once. Diana had proven him wrong, that day, only to watch Veld be wiped out of existence less than 24 hours later, powerless to stop it. Had there been some game of fate at play there, taunting her?

Diana had thought of that day a lot, in the years and decades that had followed. Every what-if had run its course through her mind on an endless loop, from the orange smoke snaking around her legs as she walked through the dead village to the brightness of the explosions high up in the sky mere hours later that had managed to rip open her heart and leave it bleeding out on the concrete airfield. Of the many regrets she carried in her heart, that was the one she didn’t seem to be able to let go of. If she were to give up on Barbara Ann and stop looking for the answers that had set them both on that path, would anyone else care to find them?

And now the amulet that, she had learned through a long grapevine, was meant to help track what was lost—and Diana hoped that this included people who didn’t wish to be found—had finally made its way into her hands.

Well, it _would,_ soon enough.

The thought made her heart constrict and she pushed the nervous flurry of anticipation away.

She had been wrong before. She had run into the proverbial brick walls half a dozen times over the past three decades, having to double back and start from the beginning. Bruce wouldn’t have sent anything to her if he didn’t know for a fact that it was authentic. But Bruce knew nothing about magic, and John Constantine had no qualms with playing a trick on Batman, given a chance.

Once again, she wondered how much Bruce knew. About her, about everything.

After his courier had delivered the suitcase with the photograph from Veld the year before, he hadn’t asked anything and she hadn’t volunteered any information past the brief _Thank you for bringing him back to me_ , feeling fiercely protective of something that private. Both of them had chosen, by an unspoken agreement, to pretend that it had never happened at all instead.

Diana knew he had looked. Though she had been careful to keep as much of her presence in man’s world over the past century hidden away from prying eyes as possible — and had long grown quite adept at that — the fallout of the events in 1984 had been loud and scandalous enough to make it easy for just about anyone to connect the dots and put her on the map. Diana suspected that this was when A.R.G.U.S. and the likes of Lex Luthor might have taken notice of her.

She didn’t like that thought but it was too late to be concerned about it now. She didn’t care much for A.R.G.U.S., and Lex Luthor was merely a footnote in the book of her life. He was not likely to walk out of the Arkham Asylum a free man ever again.

Cheetah, on the other hand, belonged to a chapter that Diana couldn’t quite flip past without seeing it through properly first. And, all things considered, it was right about time that she finally put that story to rest.

* * *

The package arrived sometimes after 9 PM.

The night guard signed for it and summoned Diana to pick it up from the after-hours delivery area.

She took it to her office, a padded plastic envelope with the “express” markings and her name and address written in Bruce's blocky handwriting. That her three decades of search could end tonight still felt like an impossibility, and she didn't want to think too hard about it yet.

Inside the envelope, Diana found a small wooden jewellery box adorned with uncomplicated carvings. Something one could find at a flea market any day of the week. For all intents and purposes, it looked nothing like what Diana had expected something holding a powerful artifact to look like.

She set the envelope on her desk, her fingers trembling a little when she lifted the lid of the box.

The stone inside looked like amber — although she knew that it wasn't — and it winked at her when it caught the light of an overhead lamp. It sat on top of a thin silver chain that pooled beneath it.

Diana reached for it, pulling at the chain until she had the pendant hanging before her eyes. And maybe it was the light, or the exhaustion of a long day, or maybe even her wild hope to finally bring this journey to an end, but she could have sworn that she saw something move within it. Like water. Or smoke.

Constantine wouldn't have dared mess with Bruce on this if he knew who Bruce was buying the pendant for. But Bruce preferred to keep his personal affairs close to his chest. If the stone went up in flames in her hands like a Roman candle, she was going to have a few words with the sorcerer, Diana thought grimly.

Her phone chimed on the desk.

 _Got it?_ she read the text from Bruce that lit up the home screen.

She set the box down and picked up the phone, still holding the pendant by the chain in her other hand. _Got it, thank you,_ she typed back before tucking her phone into the back pocket of her pants.

She was going to figure out how to use it, she mused absently, her fingers brushing against the stone as she turned it towards the light. Merely finding it was one half of what—

The lights in her office flickered, blinking in and out once, and then twice. At almost the same moment, the security alarm started to blare somewhere above her, triggered by the power surge, a piercing sound that slashed across Diana’s senses, making her grimace.

Something occurred to her then, making her swear under her breath and drop the stone back into the box on the desk as she yanked the door open and hurried into the dimly lit hallway. If the fire sprinklers came on as well, they would ruin numerous pieces of art not protected by glass casings. Not to mention the parquet floors.

The mental image was chased by another one—what if someone had broken into the museum? What if none of this had been about faulty wiring?

Diana dashed upstairs, passing the elevator that should have been deactivated the second the alarm came to life, and hurried towards the main entrance concourse. There were supposed to be half a dozen night guards on duty, but she didn’t know where they were, or if they were hurt.

The alarm cut off then, just as suddenly as it had come on, plunging the centuries-old building into such utter silence that it made her ears ring.

There was no water coming from the ceiling, much to Diana's relief, though the only lights were the emergency ones still, the system waiting to be rebooted.

She slowed down as she reached the final step leading into the concourse area, which would normally be bustling with life but was eerily quiet and dark at this hour. Her hand reached for the Lasso at her hip. She would have to make sure that everything was alright, that whatever had happened, the night guards had it under control, before she could go home.

The railing of the bannister was cool and smooth beneath her palm, polished by the millions of hands that had touched it over the years.

There was someone standing beneath the glass pyramid, pale moonlight slanting over them through sixteen hundred glass panels. A man in a thick overcoat, from what Diana could see. His back was to her and he was looking wildly around.

He didn’t look like a burglar, if she had to venture a guess.

For a second, Diana assumed he was a tourist who had somehow managed to get stuck inside after closing and was just as startled by the wailing of the alarm as she had been. It had happened before, once. A woman from Argentina had lost her way in the labyrinth of hallways and had been frantic when she was discovered, certain she would be locked in for the night.

At the sound of her heels on the marble floor, the man whipped around, his face pale and his mouth a little slack, opening and closing without a sound.

Diana stopped, the world tilting and sliding off its axis around her when their eyes met.

She watched a faint frown appear between the man's brows. 

"Diana ?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, thank you for making this far :) Comments, feedback, opinions are much appreciated, as always. I'm only going to ask you to please be civil about it and avoid rudeness even if you disagree with the creative liberties that I took. 
> 
> A special HUGE thank you goes to **akajb** for betaing this monster of a story and for supporting me every step of the way and for never trying to kill me even though I probably deserved it a few times :P 
> 
> You are also very welcome to just come talk to me about WW84, what you thought about it or, you know, just about Steve and Diana - I'm certainly here for all of that! And I'm also on [Tumblr](https://hiraeth-doux.tumblr.com/) as well! 
> 
> If you missed my one-shot fix-it **[line of fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422276)** \- feel free to give it a go :) 
> 
> Please subscribe to this story to get notifications about it being updated, if that's something you're interested in. I really enjoyed working on this fic (it kinda really kept me sane during 2020) and I hope you'll like it as well. I mean, let's be real, we all need a lot of fix-it content at the moment. 
> 
> Stay tuned!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, I just wanted to thank all of you for reading the first chapter of this story and for being so kind! I was a bit nervous about sharing it, but you have been nothing but wonderful and I do want to believe that you will enjoy what's coming next! I will expand tags/add other characters as they pop up. 
> 
> Just a quick side note - I have Steve come back in 2018 for Reasons™ and I will bring this story to the present day, eventually. 
> 
> On that note - dig in, have fun!

Diana stared at him, the familiar face and the blue eyes and the sweep of hair over his forehead. She watched as various emotions chased across his features — confusion and surprise and relief — while her heart slammed against the inside of her rib cage with slow, dull thuds that made her dizzy.

She was suddenly back on the beach on Themyscira, watching Steve open his eyes after she had dragged him out of the water. In the throne room surrounded by her sisters as the Lasso of Truth glowed against his chest. On the boat under the ink-black sky, listening to the whisper of the sea. In Veld, where he had looked at her like she was the only person in all of creation.

And then she was at the gala in 1984, and his quiet, “... you can save the world.”

It felt wrong. It felt wrong and it hurt in places she never knew existed.

“Diana?”

His voice.

Steve’s voice.

The one she had tried so hard to hold on to for so long until it, too, was but a ghost trapped in her mind. So many ghosts. And memories. All the memories that should not have still been there, after all this time. A hundred years. A hundred years of missing him to the point of feeling an ache in her bones and living with it while everyone around her grew old and died.

And then the sick, dreadful feeling in the pit of her stomach when she realized that the Dreamstone had never given her what she had wanted the most.

More lies. So many lies.

The anger came next, roaring through Diana’s body like wildfire and leaving nothing but ashes in its wake. The same fire that had burned in her chest the night she had defeated Ares and had her go against Cheetah. The same one that she knew had come from Zeus, a gift and a curse in equal measure.

Whoever was doing this, they were not going to hurt her again. They were not going to take something she held dear and use it against her.

“Diana,” the man repeated, watching her with confusion. She needed him to stop saying her name, to stop sounding so much like _her_ Steve, his voice making her heartbeat stutter.

But she was shaking her head, her breaths coming out in short, ragged gasps because he looked—

He was wearing the same German uniform that Steve had worn on the night he died. The same heavy overcoat she had taken off of him the night before then, her hands sliding over the fur on the collar before they had slipped underneath to push it down his shoulders, letting it fall at his feet. Except he had looked the same and real and hers in 1984 too, and she had been enough of a fool to believe that he had returned. That _wishing_ for him to come back was all it took.

Even after that, she had continued to love him, but she would never let anyone use that love against her ever again.

The man took a step towards her, his lips slightly parted and his expression one of shock and desperation.

Immediately, Diana reached for her Lasso, letting it unspool at her feet before she sent it forward with a flick of her wrist as it came to life under her touch, the golden glow so bright it hurt to look. The force of it calmed her, the familiar hum of power pulsing in her veins.

It wrapped across the man’s chest twice. Confused, he glanced down at it and then at her as he stopped in his tracks, tethered by a magic so ancient even she had not yet been born when it lived in this world.

“Who are you?” Diana demanded.

* * *

_Belgium, 1918_

Steve Trevor was a liar. He was a murderer and a smuggler. And while he didn’t know when it was exactly that he had realized that getting out of this war alive was not in the cards for him, looking back, he could hardly remember ever thinking otherwise. Maybe he had never been that naïve at all.

He was not afraid to die. Never had been, not really. He wouldn’t have come to this place to try and fix something deeply broken if he was, and most of the time, there was comfort to knowing that. To knowing that whatever he had accomplished, however small, was not for nothing. 

In the darkest hours of the night when the world was too quiet to bear, so quiet he couldn’t sleep, or even when he was running across muddy fields while bullets whistled past his head, praying to whoever or whatever might be listening—it calmed him to know that his would not be a pointless sacrifice. That whatever he had done to help stop this madness that continued to tear the world apart around him, it was worth it.

It gave him focus. It gave him purpose.

 _You can do nothing, or you can do something,_ his father had told him a long time ago.

Try as he might, Steve could not remember the circumstances of that conversation, which felt unfair in an odd way that he couldn’t explain even to himself. Words that had changed his life, and he could not recall hearing them.

But it was exactly what had pushed him to enlist. It was what had made him reach for Maru’s book when he got a chance, and steal the German plane, and bring a Princess of the Amazons to the front. It was what had him running towards his death instead of turning around and returning to Diana when she had called out his name, the sound of it slicing him in half on the inside and leaving his soul bleeding.

_Diana._

He wondered if she’d heard him when he told her that he loved her. If she would ever know how much she meant to him, and always would, even in death. But he didn’t dare glance back, not even for the last time, knowing that he would never be able to carry on with his plan if he did. He would want to run back to her and hold her and never let her go, the rest of the world be damned.

But he couldn’t do that. Someone had to destroy the gas before it killed millions.

Steve Trevor was not a vain man, but he was vain enough to want to do something heroic. Even if it was going to be the last thing he would do in his life.

The wind had picked up after darkness fell, the cold biting at his cheeks and snaking under the uniform that did little to protect him from the vicious bite of the approaching winter. The air was thick with the smell of exhausts, chased around by the spinning propeller blades ahead of him.

Steve climbed into the plane, pulling the German officer out of the cockpit and tossing him out before he sank into the pilot’s seat. Unbidden, his mind circled back to the words he had said to Maru mere hours ago, about the fire and everything going back to the ashes it had come from. The irony of the sentiment being more prophetic than he had meant it to be wasn’t lost on him. Under different circumstances, Steve would have laughed at it perhaps, but now, it only resonated with a pang of ache somewhere deep inside of him.

He was not afraid to die, not even in the horrific way he had sentenced himself to. But this was the first time when he desperately, achingly didn’t want to.

As the plane started its ascent into the black sky, he pulled out his handgun. The air was getting thin, the cold wind whipping through the cabin making him shiver. Soon, it would be hard for him to breathe, he knew. Then again, soon that would be the least of his concerns.

Steve closed his eyes and summoned the image of Diana’s face one last time, thinking of the way she had smiled at him last night in the flickering firelight and the quiet husk of her voice, whispering into his skin. That he would find something this wonderful right when his life was about to end was, perhaps, the cruellest joke of fate—if there even was such a thing—that he could think of.

He hoped against all hope that she would get to see the world the way she expected it to be—fair and just and full of wonders.

He hoped that she would find happiness and love she deserved.

Steve swallowed and opened his eyes. He looked back at the gas canisters stacked behind him.

And then he lifted his gun and pulled the trigger.

* * *

_Paris, 2018_

The Lasso wrapped twice across his chest, pinning Steve’s arms to his sides, its glow getting brighter and brighter until he could barely stand to look at it. Even through his clothes, it burned. It burned so hot he thought, for a brief moment of panic, that it would set his coat on fire even though the last time he had experienced its effects, it hadn’t left a mark on him.

And just like that, he was suddenly back in the throne room on Themyscira, arrows and swords pointed at him, three dozen pairs of eyes watching his every move. He had known then they would kill him without hesitation if he gave them even the slightest excuse—had known too that they had been looking for one, and he couldn’t fault them for that. Not after he had watched their people die at the hands of his.

The memory flashed before his eyes, so vivid he might as well indeed be there.

Except he wasn’t, of course. He was not on Themyscira. He was—well, he didn’t know _where_ he was. Some gallery, if he had to guess. There were paintings on the walls, and statues, and above him—a pyramid made of glass. And there was only Diana now who was looking at him like she didn’t know who he was, her eyes full of grief and sorrow that Steve didn’t understand. And the Lasso was glowing so bright, burning into him without even touching his skin.

He felt his chest constrict as a shuddering breath stuttered out of it.

“Diana,” he murmured and licked his lips.

Steve Trevor did not remember dying. Or anything that had come afterwards, if anything was meant to come at all. What he remembered was holding up his gun and how badly his finger had been shaking on the trigger. He had hesitated then, for just a moment. It turned out it was a lie that one’s life was meant to flash before their eyes right before they died. The only thing that Steve could think of in that moment was Diana and the warmth of her skin and the way her smile made his heart near damn explode in his chest and how much he just wanted another _second-minute-hour_ with her.

And then—nothing.

He was supposed to be dead. He should be dead. Was he? Was a dead man meant to feel his heart beating and his blood flowing?

“Who are you?” Diana demanded, her eyes wary on him.

Steve swallowed. He glanced at the Lasso once more and then lifted his gaze to hers again. “Diana, it’s me. What’s—What’s going on?”

She was shaking her head, her lips trembling.

“You died,” she said, her voice unsteady and thick with emotion. It echoed all around him. “Steve Trevor died in 1918. I saw it. I saw him climb into a plane—”

She cut off.

Steve could feel the magic of the Lasso flowing through him, making him lightheaded, his thoughts muddled. He remembered how the first time it had happened, when it was one of her sisters who had wielded it, the words had come tumbling out of his mouth as though he had no command over them. He wondered how long it would be before he was spitting out everything he had ever wanted to tell her, before they had both run out of time. Not long, he suspected.

“My name is Steve Trevor, Captain with the American Expeditionary Forces,” he said, watching a shadow of anguish flicker across Diana’s face. He wanted to come closer, wanted to touch her and comfort her and chase the hurt pooling in her eyes away. “You saved me,” Steve continued, his voice dropping a little. “Diana.” A pause. “You saved me when my plane crashed at—at your island. You pulled me out of the water. And I took you with me, when I left. To stop the war.”

Did they?

He glanced around once more, at the glass pyramid shooting into the black sky above them and the moon shining through the hundreds of panes. He turned to Diana again, his heart slamming hard against his ribs with every inhale.

“I watched you cross No Man’s Land. I watched you save people who had no hope left.” The words were coming out fast now, as though he was worried he would run out of time, once more. “We danced. We danced in the snow, do you remember that?” He paused when she lifted her hand and pressed it to her mouth. “And then we—then we—”

“The gas,” she said, stopping him. “You got on…”

It was Steve’s turn to shake his head now. “The plane. I know. I got on and tried to stop it, to give you time to finish—to finish what you’d come to my world to do.”

She was frowning now. “That is not possible.” 

She didn’t believe him. He could see it in her eyes, and he was awash with yet another sense of déjà vu and the memory of standing on top of the watchtower, Ludendorff’s lifeless body on the roof above them as Diana’s faith in everything she had known about the world crumbled before his eyes.

She had looked at him the same way then. For a different reason, but he recognized the look and the sensation of a void opening between them, cold and bottomless. It had hurt watching the warmth that had settled between them the night before evaporate without a trace as the cold settled in its place.

Then, it had propelled Steve forward, leaving him helpless against the urge to reach for her, touch her, try to reason with her. _Because maybe people aren’t just good, Diana. Ares or no Ares,_ he had pleaded with her, he remembered that.

He wanted to move to her now, too.

He didn’t dare do it though, half fearful that she would push him away the way she had on the outskirts of Veld, accusing him of stopping her from saving the villagers when she could, half certain that any careless word or gesture would make this—this _trick,_ or illusion, or whatever it was fade before his eyes until there was nothing but blackness left. Until he was dead the way he was meant to be.

Instead, he took a breath, his chest rising and falling beneath the golden glow of the Lasso.

“I know.” Steve swallowed, words pouring fast out of his mouth. “I know it’s not. I pulled the trigger. I swear to God I did, and then—and then I was here, and I don’t know—” he cut off. “What is this? Where are we?”

“Paris,” she said.

His frown deepened. Paris? But weren’t they in…

“Mademoiselle Prince?”

Steve snapped his head up at the sound of footsteps headed their way. In the same instant, the hold of the Lasso loosened and fell to the floor, the glow fading immediately before it coiled back at Diana’s side with a practiced flick of her wrist. Instinctively, he reached for his gun—except he didn’t have one. Not anymore. He’d had it on the plane, but he must have dropped it when he—when he—had he pulled the trigger? Steve couldn’t even say with certainty now that he had.

He glanced down, at his empty holster. And then back up at Diana who was looking towards the deeper shadows outside the pool of moonlight and out of the reach of small, dim lamps running around the perimeter of the room. He followed her gaze and saw two men in some sort of uniform step into the light, his back stiffening at the sight of the guns strapped to their hips.

They started towards Diana but paused when they spotted him.

“Monsieur?” one of the men addressed Steve, his eyes sharp and his voice, while level, carrying authority. “I need you to step back,” he demanded in French, and though he didn’t reach for his weapon, he looked like he wouldn’t hesitate if Steve gave him an excuse to do so.

Steve moved to lift his hands up, to show that he was not armed. His gaze darted towards Diana who kept glancing between him and the men, unperturbed and undisturbed by their appearance, her brows pulled together in an altogether different kind of confusion.

“Mademoiselle Prince, are you alright?” the second man asked meanwhile, reaching for some sort of radio device clipped to his belt. “Should we call—”

But Diana was shaking her head. “It’s alright,” she said, also in French, as she turned to Steve for the first time since the men arrived. She held his gaze for another moment, her expression unreadable, before she diverted her attention to the men once more. “He is with me.”

The men relaxed visibly, albeit after a moment of hesitation. They nodded in unison, before one of them grabbed the radio _thing_ and said something into it, too quiet for Steve to hear. A garbled answer came moments later, but Steve failed to make that out, either.

“The alarm…” Diana began.

“We didn’t find anyone. No points of a break-in,” the man who wasn’t speaking on the radio explained eagerly. He glanced towards Steve. “It was probably triggered by the power surge. Perhaps a city emergency?” Diana nodded to that. “Francois and his guys are doing the outer sweep, we will make sure to…”

Steve tuned him out after that, choosing to focus on the woman standing before him.

For the first time since he had found himself under the glass pyramid, Steve wondered if this was all a dream. A fevered hallucination of a restless mind or maybe the ‘other side’ was nothing like what everyone thought it was. Maybe it was never meant to be a heaven or hell sort of thing, and not a black nothing, either. Maybe it was meant to be a dream one wanted to hold on to, for the rest of eternity.

If that was the case, Steve wasn’t surprised that his was about Diana.

The sound of her voice washed over him as she spoke with the men—the _guards?_ —the soft cadence he would have recognized anywhere. He used her momentary distraction to take her in, his eyes sliding over her stately profile and the mass of her hair that he knew felt like silk to the touch, pulled back into a sleek ponytail.

If this was a dream, he sure as hell wouldn’t have minded if it never ended.

There was something strange about her, about everything, but the thought was fleeting. The men were leaving, at last, giving Steve another quizzical look. He braced himself for a round of questioning, all too aware of their weapons still—and the absence of his own. But then they were gone without a word, and it was just him and Diana and the smell of old books and something lemony hanging in the air. Something that made Steve think of his parents’ house and a wood polish.

Diana turned to him then, a slight frown still creasing the skin between her brows. He was overcome with the urge to step forward and smooth it out, the way he had the night before when she was speaking of her home. He didn’t move though, curling his hand into a fist against that impulse instead. He stared at her, and she stared back, distrustful in a way he could not recall seeing before.

For a moment, Steve expected her to reach for her Lasso once again.

She didn’t, and he was suddenly scared that this was the end of—of whatever this was. That she was going to melt into nothing before his eyes and he was going to be left alone in the room, under the pale moonlight, trying to remember the sound of her voice and the sensation of her touch and having nothing to hold on to but memories that were no more corporeal than a dream about the life with her he had weaved in his mind while Diana slept in his arms and the time was racing towards morning and the end of it all.

A memory flashed before Steve’s eyes, of watching her emerge from the orange gas that had destroyed Veld, her face stricken with grief and despair. Of her hands pushing him away from her, her voice breaking when she spoke. _Stay away from me. You did this._

Was she angry with him still? Was she blaming him for loss of lives she couldn’t stop? Would she push him away again if he tried to touch her?

Diana stepped to him then, slowly. Steve didn’t move as he watched her take him in, her eyes moving over his face.

“Steve?” she asked, quietly.

He felt his shoulders slump, rounding forward. “Hey,” he breathed, his voice low and hoarse and tight in his throat. The realization that he had never expected to see her again was like a blow to his gut, making all air rush out of him.

Diana paused when she was close enough to touch him. She lifted her hand, trailing her fingers down his cheek the way she had the night before, the night when they… Although, was that the night before? Had it all happened only yesterday? He was not so sure anymore.

Steve bowed his head closer to her, revelling in the feeling of her touch. He watched her gaze skim over his stolen German uniform. She didn’t like the sight of it, he could tell, remembering belatedly that she was the one who had buttoned up his jacket, smoothing her palms over his chest afterwards before they had left the room to go and find Sameer and the rest of them.

Her other hand reached to touch his chest but stopped short, hovering for a moment over the polished buttons, her brows pulling together.

“I watched you die,” she whispered, lifting her gaze to his. “I saw you—”

She cut off and pressed her lips together. Steve watched her face crumple, and he moved to her immediately, helpless against the impulse to comfort her. He lifted his hands to her face, thumbs stroking her cheeks. Her lips were quivering, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

“Diana,” he murmured, her name falling from his lips like a prayer.

A choked sound rose from the back of her throat. Her fingers curled over the fur collar of his overcoat as she drew him towards her. Steve ducked his head, resting his forehead to hers. She smelled the same, underneath something floral and sweet, and that alone made his chest cave in, sending his mind spiralling.

Her grip on his lapels tightened briefly before her arms were winding around him, leaving him wondering why they hadn’t started with this. He held her, her face tucked into the curve of his neck and the warmth of her breath against his skin making his heart stutter and trip over itself in his chest. And he wondered how on Earth he’d managed to walk away from this, on that airfield, whatever the cause.

Steve turned his head, brushing his lips to her temple. If this was a dream, it was, perhaps, the best one he’d ever had, he decided.

“I’m sorry,” he said earnestly, though whether he was apologizing for disappointing her or leaving her, or something else entirely, he wasn’t sure. Both, and more, he thought. “Diana, I’m sorry—”

“I know,” she breathed. “Me, too.”

They stayed like that for a long time. In the distance, Steve could hear a murmur of voices. Maybe those men that had spoken with Diana earlier, or someone else. He didn’t care, for as long as he got to hold her, solid and warm and achingly real, his heart beating all the way into her chest.

At last, Steve leaned back, about to ask what it was that _she_ was sorry for—unable to think of a single thing, truth be told. But then another thought struck him, something that he should have asked sooner, but hadn’t. Maybe not surprisingly, all things considered, although part of him—the part that had stolen Isabel Maru’s book and then one of Ludendorff’s planes, the same part that had followed Diana across No Man’s Land even if no one else had dared to step foot out there—felt bad about not caring about it before now.

“Did you end the war?” he asked anxiously, his eyes flicking between hers.

She didn’t answer at once, and for a moment, Steve was afraid that he had said something wrong. Something upsetting because there it was again, that expression he couldn’t quite read, and he had never had trouble doing that before. In that odd moment, he felt like he was standing on thin ice—one wrong step and he would plunge into the frigid water below.

But then her expression smoothed out into something tender. She brushed her thumb over his chin, the making of a small smile working its way to her face.

“You did,” she said.

There was more to it, Steve could see it on her face. But she didn’t add anything else, and he didn’t know how to ask. He nodded then, not sure what else to do. And then, the lights came on around them, flooding the spacious room with polished marble floor and bringing the world suddenly into a sharp focus.

His hands stilled on Diana’s arms as he looked around.

“What is this place?” he asked, his voice dropping to a whisper.

Not that it mattered, really. Diana was there, and he just wanted to be wherever she was, but he was curious enough to wonder nonetheless.

She was still watching him, he could feel her eyes on him. Could feel her slight smile, too. “The Louvre.”

Steve turned to her, feeling a confused frown lodge itself between his brows. “No, it’s not. Where did—where did that come from?” He gestured vaguely towards the glass pyramid above them.

He had been to Paris before. A war-torn city, crumbling under the weight of loss and despair. It had happened at least a year before the mission that had ultimately brought him to Themyscira, but Steve remembered it quite vividly still, grey streets and grey faces and the quiet resignation of those who had long given up on believing that there was still hope for them.

Back then, he had tried not to think too much of it, fearful of drowning in despair of his own if he ever allowed himself to fully contemplate the extent of what was happening to them all. They had driven across Paris, past the Eiffel Tower and _Arc de Triomphe_ and the Louvre. And though Steve’s memory was spotty about those days, one dreary memory blending into another, he was certain he would have noticed a structure made of glass rising into the sky. It had been his job to notice things, for heaven’s sake.

Diana’s expression grew sympathetic, and he knew then that whatever was coming was going to hit him hard.

And it did.

“It’s not 1918, Steve,” she said, quietly. “Not anymore.”

“It’s not?” he echoed, alarmed. “What year is it?”

“It’s 2018.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose we can all agree that they both need so many hugs, after everything they've been through.
> 
> Comments, feedback, observations, or just thoughts on Steve and Diana's relationship are always welcome and much appreciated! 
> 
> The next update is super fun (well, they all are, hopefully ;)) so please stay tuned, and I'll see you next week!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, you are so amazing! I just wanted to thank you all for your support and your wonderful comments and your interest in this story. You have no idea how much it all means to me :) As I edit my way through whatever is not edited yet, I just can't wait to share it all with you. Thank you for sticking around, I really want to believe you will enjoy what's coming next :)

The next hour of Steve’s life was a blur, crushed under the impact of Diana’s revelation.

His life hadn’t been exactly uneventful. His plane had been hit by lightning once, miles above the ground. He had seen the northern lights in Alaska on a trip with his father. And he had managed to survive the war long enough to almost— _ almost _ —see the end of it. Yet, none of it had prepared him for the possibility of being somehow miraculously catapulted a hundred years into the future without a warning or explanation. Or anything, really. 

He thought, for a few desperate moments, that Diana must be joking, his mind struggling to come up with a reasonable explanation as to what had happened. Except there wasn’t one, not unless this all was the fevered dream of a dead man, and he would much prefer it to not be one.

Questions swarmed his mind; so many of them that it made Steve’s head ache.

But before he had a chance to so much as open his mouth and spew a thousand and a half of them at Diana, they were interrupted again. Another man in a pristine uniform appeared from the hallway and headed straight towards them. Ha gave Steve a curious look, his eyes skating over Steve’s clothing, but his attention didn’t linger. He stopped before them and leaned closer to Diana, the two of them conversing in French for a few minutes. Something about security and protocols and safety. Steve tried to follow, but, still dazed, all he could do was stare at Diana, more attuned to the sound of her voice than the words coming out of her mouth.

He chose to focus on her instead, and how she looked exactly the same as he remembered, but also very much not. His gaze trailed over her high cheekbones and the small wisps of hair near the base of her neck, too short to be scooped into her ponytail, and the sharp edge of her jawline. The way her lips moved when she talked made Steve swallow, hard. He tried to remember her in that moment the way he had the night before, her clothes, the way she smelled, the way her voice sounded, echoing off all the marble and glass so he could carry the memory with him even centuries after his death.

There was a quiet authority to the way she spoke with the man standing before her, her voice steady and sure. She carried herself with the same confidence he had seen before, but unlike the war room in 1918, the people here listened to her.

That realization made Steve feel fiercely, inexplicably proud.

He thought of her willingness to leave her home behind, her determination to get to the front, of how she hadn’t hesitated to step onto No Man’s Land, and of how kind she was to the people of Veld afterwards. 

The memories chased one after another in his mind, bright and remarkable, bringing up details Steve didn’t think he’d noticed at the time. Like how everyone’s eyes were on them when they’d entered the village. Or her smile afterwards when an old man had come over to her to shake her hand. And maybe it had been a century (really? God, how he was supposed to believe that?), and maybe the world was not the way Steve remembered it, but there was so much of Diana that hadn’t changed one bit that it all but took his breath away.

Now, she was standing close enough that their fingers were nearly touching. He could feel the warmth of her, and he wondered, briefly, if she would mind if he reached for her hand.

But before he could decide one way or another, the conversation between Diana and the security guard was over, the man confirming something with a nod. Steve tuned in just in time to hear her tell him to keep her informed and to contact the museum director promptly.

The man nodded again. “Mademoiselle,” he said at last, in lieu of goodbye. He hesitated for a moment before turning to Steve. “Monsieur.”

Steve lifted his hand to give a small half-wave, half-salute, uncertain what to say or do.

By then, Diana had turned to him and was looking at him in that peculiar way that Steve couldn’t figure out, which gave his stomach a twist of uncertainty. He wondered if she was going to step towards him once again, now that they were alone, missing her nearness even though they were barely a foot apart.

She didn’t reach for him again. Instead, Steve watched her bite her lip and glance around as if deciding something. He hoped he didn’t get her in trouble with… well, being here, where he didn’t belong, though once Diana had said that he was with her—Steve made a mental note to clarify later what she’d meant by that, if it still meant that they were  _ together _ —no one had questioned his presence.

When her gaze found his once more, her expression seemed to have smoothed out.

She reached into the back pocket of her pants and pulled out a small rectangular thing that seemed to be made of glass and plastic, from what Steve could tell. She pressed a button, and the thing lit up, revealing what appeared to be a screen. Steve felt his jaw go slack, mesmerized.

“What’s that?” he asked, curious.

But she was only shaking her head and tucking the shiny rectangle back into the pocket of her pants.

“Diana…” he started again, his mind reeling from the utter surrealism of what was happening.

“Come with me, yes?” she asked, stopping him gently as her eyes searched his face.

Steve clamped his mouth shut and nodded. And then nodded again, emphatically, in case he wasn’t clear enough the first time around. He didn’t even care where she was planning on taking him, knowing that he would follow her into the pit of Hell if she so wished, no questions asked.

A small smile touched her lips. It was Diana who reached for his hand then, the same way she had done on the streets of London. Steve followed her up the marble staircase, watching her punch a code into a pad near a door that led out into the night. The air was cool against his cheeks, chilly wind tangling in his hair as he stepped onto the plaza in front of the museum. He followed Diana towards the gates and out onto a busy street bustling with life and lights.

Under different circumstances, he would have been more fascinated by it all. By all the cars and people and the music spilling from brightly-lit cafes. Now, though, Diana was all he could see, her hand clasped firmly in his, the warmth of her touch more reassuring than anything Steve could ever have imagined.

It was only after she had flagged a bright yellow cab and he climbed into a backseat, with her sliding in right after him, that he realized that she wasn’t wearing a coat. For a moment, he was mortified by not noticing it sooner, and even made a move to take off his own and offer it to her. But that would mean letting go of her hand—his eyes dropped to their interlaced fingers, his brows pulling together as he tried to solve that dilemma.

Later, he thought as he looked up to find her watching him. When they got out of the car, perhaps. He should ask. He  _ would _ ask…

“Where are we going?” Steve blurted out.

He felt her thumb brush over his knuckles. “Home.”

He nodded once more, starting to feel a little ridiculous. But he decidedly liked her response.  _ Home. _ He could use some of that.

He didn’t say anything else after that. The driver clarified something once or twice, making Diana lean forward towards the partition between the seats to respond, but Steve’s eyes never deviated from her, his heart slamming against the inside of his ribs with measured, hollow thuds as the city rushed by outside the car in a whir of lights.

When the cab slowed down and pulled to a stop, Diana fished a small plastic rectangle from a pocket attached to her shiny device and handed it to the driver. Mesmerized, Steve watched the man touch the plastic to a machine sitting near the gear stick, its screen lighting up as it beeped. The plastic thing was returned to Diana then and she pushed the door open before Steve had an opportunity to ask what any of that was.

After another glance at the strange machine, he scurried after her and into the street. Steve froze, barely avoiding colliding with an old lady walking down the sidewalk and earning a displeased scowl in response to his apparent clumsiness. He muttered a quiet apology and the woman scoffed as she walked away.

When he looked up at Diana, she was biting her lip around a smile, amusement dancing in her eyes. It was enough to make his head swim.

Belatedly, Steve remembered the plan to give his overcoat to her, but when he caught up with her, she was already standing on a stoop leading into a brightly lit building, her hand on the doorknob, holding the door open as she waited for him to figure out how to cross the sidewalk.

He clambered the stairs taking two steps at a time, half-convinced that she was going to vanish into thin air if he allowed himself to take his eyes off her for too long.

“Come,” she said, her hand reaching for Steve’s once again to pull him into the foyer. There was a concierge in a suit watching them from behind a desk near the front. Diana nodded at him. “Thank you for letting me in, Leon. I forgot my keys in the office.”

If the man was surprised by that or the fact that she was not dressed for the weather, he kept his comments to himself.

“Of course, Mademoiselle Prince.”

He offered her an affectionate smile before his eyes moved over to Steve, lingering on him for a moment or two. Steve didn’t care. He was too busy staring around, at the marble floors and elegant furniture and crystal chandeliers, at polished glass and elegant wood panelling on the walls. It all looked beautiful and expensive, and he was, perhaps unsurprisingly, reminded of the palace where the Amazons had taken him for questioning and how everything there had spoken of class and status.

That memory brought a cascade of others, like the burn of water in his lungs right before he had opened his eyes and seen her for the first time, and the bright red blood on the white sand, and the certainty that he would not leave that place alive. 

Steve took a breath and tried to quell the memories, choosing to focus instead on Diana and the way her hand felt in his. And how it almost—almost—made this whole thing about the future okay, though he still wasn’t entirely sure it was actually happening.

Later, Steve would remember following Diana into a shiny chrome elevator, one wall of which was a mirror and how it smelled really nice. He would remember the door sliding open into a wide hallway on the top floor of the building, the carpet soft beneath his worn boots when he stepped out. How she had led him into her apartment and showed him the kitchen and the living room and her office and asked him if he wanted something to eat or drink, to which Steve’s answer had been negative.

It would all come back later, eventually, once the shock of the day settled and his mind had a chance to catch up with everything he had seen and done and heard.

But right now, he didn’t remember much of anything between the lobby and the moment when he found himself standing in the bathroom, clutching the towels Diana had given him to his chest while she hovered in the doorway, uncertain, and he was suddenly at a loss for words.

Steve watched her, two feet and a hundred years between them. He could feel every moment of it then, the distance that couldn’t be measured even if he knew where to start and how to go about it.

“If you need anything…” Diana began before trailing off.

It was just a shower, he wanted to tell her. He had managed to infiltrate the German army in the middle of the carnage. Surely, he could figure out how her shower worked. He didn’t say any of that, though. He just said a quiet, “Thank you.”

She made a move to leave, but then paused once more.

“Leave your clothes here,” she added, pointing at the counter framing the sink. “I’ll come get them in a few minutes.”

Steve swallowed and nodded once again. And with that, she smiled and stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

For a moment, he merely stared at it, listening to the receding sound of her footsteps as she walked away. And then, silence.

A shuddering breath stuttered out of his chest. Still clutching the towels to his chest, he turned around, his gaze moving over the marble countertop of the sink, white hand-towels and a cabinet in the corner. There was a clawfoot tub pressed against the wall across from him, with a shower curtain pushed to the side. It looked like something that Steve used to have in his apartment in London. Something that would have looked old and outdated, in another place, but that spoke, even to him, of wealth and elegance and style, here.

He smoothed his hand over the towels, marvelling in the softness he had never imagined possible. They smelled nice too, fresh and clean.

Steve looked up, finding his reflection in the mirror in front of him. He looked the way he had the morning before he and Diana had walked out of the room they had shared, leaving something that he had known even then they would never get back behind. Quiet promises whispered between breathless kisses, the world lying wide and open before them in the moments when they had allowed themselves to imagine no one else existed in it but them.

He was a spy. He was used to pretending to be someone he was not and taking on roles with an ease that reminded him of stepping into well-worn shoes. He knew how to blend in and adapt without missing one beat and behave as though he belonged in times when he decidedly did not.

But standing in this pristine room, stripped off every lie he had ever said and every mask he had ever worn, Steve felt more out of place than he ever had before.

The thought made his stomach twist and his heart clench, and he wondered if Diana could see it, too. The liar that he was.

He took a breath and set the towels down beside the sink, suddenly desperate to take off the damned German uniform that felt, despite being the right fit, like it was suffocating him. He took off his overcoat and placed it where Diana had instructed. He stepped towards the bathtub next and its polished chrome faucet winking at him in the bright overhead lights. It took him a couple of minutes to figure out how to work it, but for all the fuss about the future, her shower was not the most complicated thing about it, so far.

It was only after Steve took off the rest of his clothes and stepped under the hot spray that he realized how badly he was shaking. Mild shock, he thought as he cranked up the hot water until it was nearly scalding.

For a long time, he simply stood there, his hands trembling and his teeth chattering, reminding him of long nights spent in the trenches when each breath felt like it was taking the precious little strength he still had left. 

Somewhere in the periphery of his attention, Steve heard a soft knock on the door, and a moment later it opened. Through the translucent shower curtain, he saw Diana’s hands reach inside and pick up the clothes he had left on the edge of the sink, but she didn’t come in or say anything, merely closing the door gently after her. 

It was then that Steve remembered that he was naked. Which reminded him of the last time he had been naked around Diana. Which reminded him vividly of—

It seemed to have been enough to make his blood run hot, snapping him out of his funk and confusion—into another state of confusion. One that was, admittedly, easier to deal with. Steve forced himself to turn towards the tiled shelf and the row of various bottles lining it. He plucked the one that read  _ Crème Douche _ and sniffed it, surprised and slightly pleased to find out that it smelled like something he had detected on Diana when he’d hugged her earlier. He decidedly liked that.

He picked up a washcloth and squeezed some of the floral-scented liquid on it, scrubbing his skin until it felt raw, desperate to wash off any and all remnants of the war and the two years he had spent living and breathing its vile nature. He scrubbed and scrubbed until it started to hurt and the sensation of there being a thin film of grime and dirt sitting just beneath his skin had ebbed.

By the time Steve was done, his skin was flushed and tender.

He turned off the water and pulled the shower curtain aside. The room was filled with sweet-smelling steam. Steve reached for the towel, drying himself off before he swept his hand across the fogged-up mirror. He ran the second towel over his hair and then smoothed it down with his hand. The man that stared at him in the reflection looked slightly more familiar, though he didn’t quite trust himself to accept it just yet.

Steve blinked, shaking the weird daze off. 

His fingers touched his chin. Diana had given him a toothbrush, but he wondered if she had a razor somewhere. After a brief moment of hesitation, he reached for the cabinet over the sink. He shouldn’t be snooping, he thought, with a slight pang of guilt. But, then again, he wasn’t really snooping. He just needed…

His gaze swept over the variety of jars and tubes and lotions, makeup and other lady things that had never not baffled him. He found sunscreen and a mouthwash at the end of one shelf. No razors, as far as he could tell at once. Without thinking, he reached for a bright-coloured box, his curiosity getting the best of him. 

Steve turned the box in his hands, and then his eyes widened as they snagged on words  _ latex  _ and  _ durable  _ and ‘ _ ribbed for extra pleasure’ _ . Hastily, he shoved the box back into the cabinet, his face growing hot. Which way was it facing? He wasn’t sure, he couldn’t remember anymore. He hoped he got it right. 

His gaze darted towards the door, as though expecting it to fly open just then. Would only serve him right if it did. 

It didn’t, and he closed the cabinet quickly, forgetting completely about the razor. 

Thank god Diana wasn’t there and he didn’t have to explain himself. 

Steve scrubbed his hand down his face and tried very, very hard to will himself not to think of the damned box and its contents. 

He knew he was likely going to do just that for the rest of forever. 

He took a steadying breath, the back of his neck burning. 

It was only then that it occurred to him that Diana had taken  _ all _ of his clothes, and that save for the towel wrapped around his hips, he had nothing to wear.

After a moment or two of a mental debate, Steve stepped towards the door. The alternative, he figured, would be to stay locked in this bathroom forever. And while it was a nice bathroom—above average even, as far as he could tell—it didn’t seem like a reasonable option.

He reached for the knob and yanked it open—only to find Diana on the other side, her hand raised as though she was about to knock.

Startled, he took a step back, his other hand tightening on the towel knot that held said towel in place. Which was damn ludicrous, really. There was nothing she hadn’t seen already. The thought made the back of Steve’s neck grow hot all over again.

“Hey,” he said, softly.

“I was just going to…” Diana began, her gaze darting down to a stack of clothes in her hand. Something for him to wear, Steve figured. Probably.

He blinked.

“Oh.”

“Here.” She handed the whole pile to him, and he took it with one hand, still holding on to his towel. 

“Thank you,” he said.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, searching his face.

And he wondered how it was possible that after a handful of days together followed by a century apart, she still managed to see right through his façade. He wondered if she also looked at herself in a mirror after he had brought her to a world that had made little sense to her and had felt just as lost. He suspected she had, even if she would not tell him. Not even if he asked.

And he wondered if it scared her as much as it did him that their time apart had felt both inconsequential and monumental, all at once.

He wanted her to reach for him again, the way she had at the museum a couple of hours ago. To stroke his cheek the way she had then; the way she had in Veld.

She didn’t, though, her hands hanging at her sides and the pile of clothes that Steve held against his chest like a wall between them. 

“Yeah, I’m—” he started and glanced down. “I should maybe…”

For a moment, Diana looked like she was going to say something then, but in the end, she only nodded. And then he was retreating back into the bathroom and closing the door, not quite certain what had just happened, but not convinced it was a good thing. And then once the door was shut between them, Steve was no longer sure if he had seen what he thought he had.

He unfolded the clothes that Diana had given him, finding a pair of baggy, shapeless pants made of a soft material. They were not his pants, and even without trying them on, he could tell they would be a bit short for him. Unless everything was meant to be short in the 21st century. There was no underwear, the thought of Diana handling it making his cheeks redden. He hadn’t thought of that before he had allowed her to take his things. 

He pushed his embarrassment aside—there was nothing he could do about it now—and picked up the next item. It was a plain white short-sleeved shirt, with “I ❤ Paris” written in bold letters across the chest.

Steve wrinkled his nose, his brows knitting together in confusion as he studied the shirt. It was made of soft cotton and it smelled like something new. Something never worn before. He considered it for another moment, wondering absently why Diana wouldn’t simply give him his own clothes—admittedly, stolen—back.

His hesitation was short-lived though, before he was unwrapping his towel and pulling the clothes on, choosing to ignore the underwear issue for now. God knew he had other things to be concerned about. 

Then, after he hung the towels on the rack screwed into a wall, he pulled the door open.

* * *

The one thing that Diana remembered acutely after everything that had happened in 1984 was the sense of profound, consuming emptiness that the loss of the flimsy illusion conjured by a spell, and fuelled by her loneliness, had left behind.

Up until then, she had been sure that she couldn’t miss Steve more than she had in the months following the war when she would wake up in the bed in Etta’s guest bedroom and reach for him across the mattress only for her hand to brush over empty space and cold sheets. She had ached so much then she had thought it would turn her inside out, her guilt over surviving  _ his _ war almost too much to bear.

When he’d come back in 1984, however incorporeal, it had felt like cutting an old scar open, the pain and hope and desperation bleeding out until she could barely breathe. And she had missed him even more afterwards, wondering as hot tears burned her eyes how many times could one’s heart be broken before it was no longer possible to mend it. She had spent two years sleeping with one of the shirts she had bought for a man that had not even been him, not entirely, sprayed with the aftershave she had imagined Steve liking.

And now he was back once more, and she could feel the old ache throbbing in her fingertips, rolling over her in waves of panic.

For a long moment, she stood in the middle of the hallway as she listened to Steve move about her bathroom, undoubtedly as perplexed by the entire ordeal as she was. Maybe more so. Diana’s heart clenched at the thought, at the memory of his expression earlier, when he had stood with the Lasso wrapped around him, relieved and earnest. Of the way he’d smelled—exactly as she remembered (of gunpowder smoke and winter and Steve). Of how warm his skin felt when she’d touched his face, the texture of his overcoat beneath her palms just right.

And she wondered how that one moment had erased decades in an instant.

All those years of running away from him and from herself, and she loved him still.

Loved him the way she had when he had slept beside her on the boat taking them back to his world, albeit not realizing it yet. Loved him the way she had when he had bought her ice-cream and when he had followed her across No Man’s Land and when they had danced as snow fell from the pitch-black sky. She had been mad at him and hurt and devastated when Ludendorff had dropped the gas bomb on Veld, but she had loved Steve for coming after her though he’d never known that.

There was no sense or reason behind the feeling that was for someone she had only known for a handful of days. A feeling that neither time, nor other lovers, had erased. One that continued to live on because, and in spite of, everything that had gone down between them; because, and in spite of, everything she had seen and experienced in the time that had passed since she had last seen him.

It was the sound of running water on the other side of the door that snapped Diana out of her stupor, at last. She gazed around, momentarily surprised to find herself standing in her apartment instead of an airfield, surrounded by German soldiers.

She took a breath, feeling restless and wired, willing her heartbeat to settle. She stood there for another moment, half certain that any second, everything would go back to the way it had been this morning. 

And then she moved back towards the bathroom, rapping her knuckles on the door a few times. Steve didn’t respond, but she pushed the door open just enough to reach for the clothes left near the sink all the same, catching only a brief glimpse of the outline of his body behind shower curtain, relieved more than she was willing to admit to know that he hadn’t vanished the second she’d let him out of her sight like she had feared he would.

She took his clothes and closed the door. It was then that it struck Diana that she had nothing to offer him in return—the only wearable items she owned were her own. And while the idea of offering her garments to him was entertaining enough to make a fleeting smile cross her face, she doubted that Steve would have an appreciation for her yoga pants.

What she did have though, were a couple of gift shop shirts—prototypes offered to staff when they made orders or changed designs. At the time, Diana had put them away never to think of them again, but maybe…

She glanced at the bathroom door once more, and then headed towards the utility closet at the end of the hallway where her washer and dryer were tucked away. She loaded everything except for his overcoat (which she hung on the rack by the front door) into the washer and turned it on. Afterwards, she took in a careful breath, her chest tight with things she couldn’t even begin to define, and pressed her fingers to the corners of her eyes. The world felt like a shaky, fragile thing, and she feared she might fall right off its edge. And she didn’t know how to hold on. 

Losing Steve once felt like having her heart ripped out of her chest. The second time, it had nearly destroyed her, leaving her hollowed-out. If it were to happen again, she didn’t think she could ever heal.

She had never told anyone the full story. Not even Bruce, though she knew that he was curious. Diana suspected that he had dug up as much as he could about her and the photograph that he had put an undoubtedly considerable amount of time and effort—and probably money—to locate. She wondered sometimes what it was that he had found. After all, she had put quite as much time and effort into keeping her private life private. They had never discussed it though, and she suspected they never would.

She hadn’t even shared it with Lois, though Diana had had multiple chances and reasons to do so.

The rest of the League, as far as she was aware, had limited knowledge about her past. And even though she loved them dearly and valued their friendship, it was something that always seemed to be a line that they didn’t dare cross, keeping away by an unspoken agreement.

She wondered if that was why they hadn’t lasted, or if there were bigger factors in play that she hadn’t even thought of that had torn them apart in the end. She wondered if that was one of her many mistakes. But, as always, there was no simple answer to that.

Diana took another moment to consider her impediment.

For so long, she had fought for a place in this world. For a sense of belonging, of knowing who she was and where she was standing. It was disconcerting to know how easily her carefully crafted balance had been thrown off its axis.

Restless, she again pulled her phone from the pocket of her pants. She ignored the missed calls and messages and emails from her assistant that she had been going to sort through before Bruce’s package had arrived, starting the domino effect that had upended her entire night. She found Clark’s number in her contacts, pressing dial before she could change her mind and then hanging up after one ring.

What was she doing?

She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, searching for the quiet place inside of her. Something to steady and ground her.

Somewhere down the hall, her washer beeped, signalling the end of the cycle. Her eyes snapped open, her heart giving a dull  _ thump-thump-thu— _ against the inside of her breastbone. 

By the time she moved Steve’s clothes into the dryer and turned it on, her mind seemed to have cleared, somewhat. There were no wishing stones to blame for this now, she thought. She hadn’t come across any questionable artifacts recently, and though there wasn’t a day when she didn’t wish for Steve’s return, she had long stopped begging gods for it. 

Whatever was happening, she was going to get to the bottom of it.

Unbidden, Diana’s eyes went towards the hallway and the door at the end of it where the water continued to run. She didn’t even notice how badly her hands were shaking until her phone came to life and she nearly dropped it, her heartbeat kicking up a notch from the suddenness of it.

Clark.

Diana hesitated for another moment, and then, after taking a breath, she pressed accept.

“Clark,” she said as a way of greeting.

_ “Hey,” _ Clark said back, and just the cheer behind that one word alone made her smile, something inside of her settling in a way she didn’t expect it to. There was a brief pause, and when she didn’t say anything, he asked:  _ “I missed your call. What’s up?” _

It had been a while since they’d spoken, a few months perhaps, but the relief of the easy familiarity between them—as though nothing had happened and nothing had changed—was almost too much to bear, the enormity of the comfort that his call brought overwhelming.

It made her eyes prickle. It made her wish she knew how to keep the League in her life without feeling like it was spinning out of control.

“I…” Diana started and faltered. 

_ “Are you okay?” _ Clark asked, after a moment.

She let out a measured breath, grateful and disappointed in equal measure for his call.

“Yes,” she said, rubbing her forehead. She paused and repeated, “Yes, I am.”

She hadn’t even thought of the fact that Clark was a living and breathing proof of miraculous resurrections, but now that the thought crossed her mind, it was all Diana could think of. The impossible made possible.

Could it be…?

She stepped back into the kitchen, trying to tame the restless energy now coursing through her system.

_ “Diana,” _ Clark’s voice was soft in her ear. There was a long pause, and it was so easy for her to picture his kind smile.  _ “What’s going on?” _

Something unbelievable, Diana thought.

She shouldn’t have called him. It was one thing to sink into a void of her memories when there was no one to see it, and something else entirely to let someone else in and turn her very soul inside out for them. Even after all this time, even after having convinced herself that she had put the past behind and moved on—a lie that stood all the more glaring now than ever before—she still felt fiercely protective of the hit her heart had taken on a cold night in 1918.

Her life in man’s world had been half a secret for as long as she could remember. Once the dust had settled and the memory of her crossing No Man’s World had begun to fade in the minds of those who had lived to tell the tale of it, it was as though part of her had started to fade as well.

She hadn’t thought of it much, truth be told, her attempts to get used to living in a world so different from the one she had been born into taking over; making her deem the need to change and adjust inevitable and necessary. But thinking or not, she was different. She had spent a century pretending to be one of them and would likely spend many more doing just that, but it would still never change who and what she was.

Steve—

Steve was the only person who had known the real her. Who had seen her standing tall and proud in her mother’s throne room, surrounded by her sisters she had fought alongside with. And he was also the one who had borne witness to her shock and confusion, her complete lack of comprehension of the norms and customs of his world. She had not felt more alive than she had with him; certainly not  _ since _ then.

Maybe Diana was different, but from that standpoint, so was he.

And she wanted—had always wanted, Hera help her—to keep it that way.

In the years following Steve’s death, there had been moments when she had considered telling her lovers the truth. About herself, about what she was. Yet, each time she had come close to doing so, there was something holding her back. The entire time, Diana had assumed it was the fear of rejection that had held her back, without realizing that, in truth, it was the desire to protect something that she didn’t want to share with anyone but Steve. Not even if she lived for thousands of years more without him.

The pause on the line started to stretch.

She shouldn’t have called, Diana thought once more, as she pinched the bridge of her nose. She should never have—

_ “You can talk to me, you know?” _ Clark said, pulling her out of the white-noise storm of her thoughts. 

It was the sincerity of his offer that left her with a hot lump lodged in her throat. She knew that he meant it, too. That he hadn’t offered just so he could hear himself express his opinion afterwards.

Throughout Diana’s life, there had been long periods of time when she stood adjacent to everyone else, watching other people’s lives unfold from the sidelines. Particularly, after Etta—the last of her group of friends who had known almost as much about Diana as Steve had—had passed away. Sometimes, it had happened through her own choice. Other times—because she didn’t know how to allow herself to join in without feeling like she was betraying the memory of someone who never got to see and do everything that she could throw herself into so freely.

She could have said no, to Clark’s offer. She could have thanked him for the call, and maybe asked him something about his job, and then bidden him goodbye with a promise to talk again soon that they would both know she’d try to find an excuse not to keep.

But this was Clark, and Clark was not… If there was anyone in this world who could understand what it was like to be different in ways that no one could even begin to comprehend, it was him. Maybe he hadn’t walked the beaches of Themyscira or seen her at her rawest the way Steve had or watched someone he loved more than anything die before his eyes, but being from another planet was not that different from being from another world, Diana knew.

Of them all, he was most likely to understand and the least likely to judge.

And so she told him. Not everything—they would be speaking for days, she suspected. There wasn’t enough time—the shower had been running for a while now, and while Diana understood Steve’s need to try and scrub off the despair that the war had undoubtedly left on him, she reckoned he wasn’t going to stay in there for that much longer.

She began with the first war she had ever seen and the plane crashing through the sky and the night that had left her heart shattered over hard concrete. She told him about Maxwell Lord and his greed for power and the Dreamstone that had convinced Diana that the one thing she had wished for for decades was real only to rip it away from her, leaving her aching more than ever before, and how she had vowed to leave that part of her life behind then, for fear that she would break in ways that could never be mended.

What a fool she had been, to believe that, she thought.

She told him about finding Steve once more, tonight, convinced that he had been yet another ghost who had come to haunt her. A conviction she knew would be hard to shake off, had it not been for the night guards at the Louvre and Leon, the downstairs concierge, who had seen what she’d seen, confirming something that Diana feared to believe.

When she finally fell silent, there was another long pause on the line.

_ “Wow, Di, that’s…” _ Clark started and faltered.

“A lot,” she finished for him.

_ “Yeah,” _ he breathed. Diana could picture him leaning back in his chair, his hand pushing through his hair.  _ “And you’re sure it’s him?” _

Was she?

She wondered sometimes how her life would have turned out, if she had figured out that something was not right, in 1984. An empty question without an answer. She had been a different person then; she had no way of knowing if she would have made different choices without knowing what she did now.

But it made her heart give a twinge of sorrow all the same.

Diana paused, her mind going back to the moment at the museum when Steve had reached for her. When he cupped her face with his hands, thumbs brushing away her unbidden tears. The way he had done before—at the watchtower as he begged her to come with him to help save everyone while the world as Diana had known it continued to crumble around her; at the airfield before he had placed his watch in her hands and then run towards his death.

He had done it the night before that, too, their clothes strewn over the floor and the fire in his eyes burning brighter than the flames in the hearth behind him.

She thought of the Lasso burning bright on the darkened concourse, crowded with shadows and the desperation in his voice, pleading with her to believe him.

She had not bound him in 1984. A lot of things would have gone differently if she had, she thought.

“Yes,” Diana heard herself say. She waited another moment, biting on her lip. “But that doesn’t explain how.”

_ “Does it matter?” _

“It did in 1984, and then he was gone. If this is—” she stopped and swallowed past a lump of panic in her throat. What if it was not forever, was what she wanted to stay.

She couldn’t bring herself to say the words out loud, though she suspected she didn’t need to.

Another moment passed. When Clark spoke again, Diana half expected reassurance. He was good at that, after all.

_ “Are you okay?”  _ he asked instead.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, honestly.

_ “You know that we’re here for you, right? If someone is messing with you—” _

“I know,” Diana said softly.

She did, in fact, know that, and that was something that she was endlessly grateful for.

“I supposed we’re both confused,” she added.

At that, Clark chuckled a little.  _ “I imagine. A hundred years, huh?” _

“That will probably take some getting used to,” she conceded, feeling the corners of her mouth curve into a smile. Behind the bathroom door, the water finally shut off. Diana straightened up. She needed to find him some clothes. “I have to go.”

_ “Call if you need anything,” _ Clark said, his tone suddenly not joking anymore.  _ “I’m serious, Di. Any one of us.” _

“I will,” she said.

_ “I mean it,” _ Clark pressed.

“I know. I do, too.” Her pulse stuttered over itself when she heard the shower curtain being drawn aside. “Tell Lois I said hi. I will call her next week.”

_ “Will do. We love you, Di.” _

“Goodbye, Clark.”

Diana set her phone down on the counter. In her bedroom, she found two t-shirts and picked out the one she thought would humour Steve the most. She was relieved to discover a pair of sweatpants as well, hoping he wouldn’t mind wearing something with the word Paris on his behind for a while. There was nothing she could offer him in terms of socks or underwear, but it would have to do, she thought as she carried everything back to the bathroom. 

She was about to knock on the door to inquire if he was decent, when Steve yanked it open, appearing right before her in a cloud of steam, one of the spare towels she had offered him wrapped around his waist.

His skin was flushed from the hot water, his hair hanging over his forehead, which for reasons unknown to her, left Diana filled with odd, inexplicable tenderness. Though he had clearly tried to dry off his hair with a towel, it was still damp, dripping on his shoulders.

She was suddenly reminded of the day when she had walked in on him getting out of the pool in the caves beneath her mother’s palace, his expression surprised and perplexed by her apparent curiosity and casual nonchalance around his nudity. Admittedly, not much had changed. Looking at him now, Diana was overcome with the urge to move forward and brush the droplets of water off of his skin. Or kiss them away. 

Her fingers curled around the clothes she was holding.

“Hey,” Steve breathed out after a moment.

Diana glanced down, and then back up at him. “I was just going to…”

“Oh.”

“Here.” She handed the whole stack to him, and he took it with one hand.

“Thank you,” he said.

She retreated to the living room, feeling antsy as she waited for him to re-emerge from the bathroom. And then into the kitchen where she busied herself with putting on a kettle to make some tea, if only for the sake of having something to do with her hands.

Zeus help her, no training with the best of warriors to walk this Earth, however vigorous, seemed to have prepared her for this. After a century of living in man’s world, she had started to assume that there was little left that could still surprise her or throw her off guard. Yet, here she was, proven wrong by something she had never seen coming. Go figure.

She sensed movement behind her, and when she turned around, Steve was hovering in the doorway, his eyes moving over the space, his gaze lingering on appliances that, Diana realized with a start, he had never seen in his life.

When he’d finally completed a full sweep of the kitchen, he turned his focus on her, catching her as she tried to bite back a smile at the sight of him wearing that goddamned ridiculous shirt that tourists were so fond of and sweatpants that barely reached his ankles. She watched as his brows pulled together into a frown like she knew they would.

“So, this is… fashion?” he asked after a moment, gesturing at himself and making Diana press her lips together so she wouldn’t burst out laughing.

“Some might say,” she responded diplomatically. Her humour dimmed some after a moment. “I could give you your clothes back, if that’s what’d you prefer,” she offered. “They’re in the dryer, it shouldn’t be long now. I just thought—”  _ you might not want to continue wearing them. _

She didn’t say that, cutting off when he shook his head.

“No. No, this is good,” he said quickly, a shadow passing across his features. “Thank you. These are—” He ran his hand over his hair and made a face. “These are better. It looks ludicrous, but it’s not—”

_ Not something with bad memories attached to it. _

Diana nodded, understanding his unspoken words.

“It suits you,” she offered, earning an offended look in return. “We will get you something different tomorrow,” she promised.

“Please tell me this is not how people in the twenty-first century dress?” he asked, looking down again at his shirt with a sigh. She had a feeling he was purposefully ignoring the stitched-on decoration on the back of his sweatpants, which only left her even more amused. 

“That would not be a bad thing, believe me,” she shook her head, smiling.

He looked like he was going to ask her to elaborate on that. But in the end, he didn’t. Instead, he gave her kitchen another wide sweep before he glanced towards the living room and hallway next—what he could see of them.

“So, this is where you live,” he observed.

“It is.”

Steve turned towards her. “And the Louvre?”

“I work there,” Diana explained.

He blinked. “You…  _ work _ at the Louvre?” he echoed, dumbfounded.  _ “The  _ Louvre?” 

“Is that so strange?” she asked.

He chuckled and slid his hands into the pockets of his pants, his smile wistful.

“I went to stop that gas from killing people and the next moment I know, I pop up in the future and the woman who had no idea how a revolving door operated when we first met lives in Paris and works at the Louvre and has a kitchen that looks like something out of a science fiction novel.  _ Strange  _ doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.”

There was humour but also a touch of self-deprecation in his voice that made her chest constrict.

“You must have so many questions,” she said softly.

At that, the corner of Steve’s mouth tugged up into a wry smile. “A few thousand, give or take.” He cocked his head a little to his shoulder. “The first of them being… You look good for someone who is over a hundred years old. I’m taking it, clay doesn’t age.”

Diana smiled at that. “Well, it turned out that my mother hasn’t been entirely upfront about the nature of my… existence,” she said, shaking her head a little.

His brow quirked quizzically “Which is?”

“Zeus did bring me to life,” she explained and she leaned against the counter. Oddly enough, the old sting of bitterness over her mother’s lie didn’t come. “But in a more traditional way than what I was led to believe.”

She watched Steve process her response, figuring it out. Watched as his expression smoothed out into understanding, and then—into deeper confusion.

“You mean reproductive biology,” he said.

“Yes.”

His eyes widened at that. “Wait, but that means you’re…”

“A daughter of a god,” Diana finished for him.

“Immortal,” he said to himself, more than to her as he rubbed his chin. “That’s why you haven’t aged.”

She smiled. “To be fair, I was already a little older than I think I looked to you when we met.”

She expected a question about that, or maybe a joke about an older woman taking advantage of him. She was not surprised when instead he was smart enough to grasp onto something else.

“But if you’re a daughter of Zeus, and Ares was his son, then—”

“He was my half-brother, yes.”

Steve shook his head. “That’s…” he trailed off. “You killed him.”

“I did.”

“But you said—What did you mean when you said I was the one who stopped the war, then? Earlier, when I asked.”

“Because I couldn’t be in two places at once, Steve,” she responded, softly. “If you hadn’t done what you did, if you didn’t destroy the gas, millions of people would have died, regardless of whether or not I defeated Ares.”

_ “We _ did it, then,” Steve said quietly.

The way they had liberated Veld, Diana thought, her mind going back to sitting next to him by the fountain as people sang and danced in front of them with hope that was so palpable in the air she could almost touch it.

She felt something inside of her began to unravel at the memory—the starting point of everything that had gone wrong, eventually. She had failed to save them, in the end. She had failed to save Steve.

“Would you like some tea?” Diana asked, uncertain how to break the silence growing between them. “Or coffee,” she continued. “I could make you something to eat,” she added as she moved towards the fridge. “You must be hungry.”

Steve’s hand curled over her arm, stopping her.

“Diana.”

She paused and looked up, and like many times before, meeting his gaze had an effect of a sucker punch to her stomach.

“What happened next?” he asked. “After I—after everything.”

“I’ll tell you,” she promised, quietly. “Anything you want to know.”

“All of it,” he said quickly, as though she might change her mind.

“I promise.”

_ And a promise is unbreakable. _

She didn’t say that, but she didn’t need to. He understood, she saw that.

Diana wondered if he  _ believed _ her.

“You should eat something,” she offered again, but he was shaking his head again.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then rest. It’s late.” Helpless against the urge to touch him, she lifted her hand to brush his hair back from his face, her fingers skittering down his cheek. “I will tell you everything, but you need to rest first, Steve.”

He looked like he was going to argue, his jaw working for a moment or two. Diana understood that. He had to be exhausted. The last several days they had spent together, before  _ that _ night that had shattered her world and taken him away from her, had been draining. If she had to venture a guess, his life hadn’t been much easier for quite a while before then, too. But there was something dark and desperate in his eyes now, and after a moment, she understood it.

He was afraid. He was afraid that he was not going to wake up in 2018 tomorrow. That whatever fluke had brought him here could just as easily take him away and then he would never know what she had to tell him.

Diana’s hand dropped to his shoulder.

“I swear I won’t let—” she started and cut off when he tensed, flinching a little.

She drew her hand back, a frown appearing between her brows.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing. I’m fine,” Steve promised immediately.

She lifted her gaze to him.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No! No, you didn’t.”

She didn’t believe him, and saw in the change of his face that he knew it, too.

“My shoulder,” he admitted after a moment, and rolled it gingerly, a grimace passing across his features. “Must have banged it up when I—”

_ Blew myself up. _

He didn’t say that, falling silent instead, the memory of it hanging heavily between them for a few moments.

“Diana, I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you sooner. I’m sorry I—” He cut off again and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I never meant for it to end that way. For us. For you. Leaving you…”

_ With you dead and me grieving for a century, _ Diana thought.

When she had climbed into the Armory in the middle of the night to retrieve what she had believed then to be the God-killer; when she had gone to get Steve and take him to the boat; when she had demanded he take her to the front—she hadn’t meant for it all to end the way it had, either.

There had been a time when Diana could barely comprehend the idea of regrets. She knew Steve had a fair number of them—some shared with her in a hushed whisper as the fire was dying in the hearth; others hidden so deep inside of his heart she had wondered then if he even knew a path towards them himself.

But a hundred years, however insignificant for an immortal, was a long enough time for her to accumulate quite a few mistakes of her own she would have liked to undo. Her failure to save him had always stood above them all, a glaring reminder that her own divinity meant nothing in the face of loss of those she cared deeply for. There had been many a night when she’d lain awake till the early hours of morning, asking herself if he’d lived had she not insisted they go after Ludendorff. If she’d followed him after he’d come looking for her at the watchtower. If she’d figured out the truth about Ares sooner.

If… if… if…

There was no way of knowing that, but it hardly alleviated Diana’s guilt.

She brushed her hand through his hair once more, pushing it back from his face. Her eyes searched his.

“Let me see,” she said.

Steve blinked. He frowned a little. When Diana’s gaze flicked towards his shoulder, he cleared his throat. “It’s nothing,” he repeated.

“Steve.”

“I’m okay, I swear. I’ve had it—”

Worse, he was probably going to say.

Diana thought of the light burning bright in the night sky above her, and wondered if that was where his mind went as well. He’d had it worse—he’d died. It was hard to beat  _ that. _

There was a change to his face then. Whatever it was that Steve saw in hers had him reaching for the hem of his shirt.

Diana moved closer, helping him so he wouldn’t jostle his injured shoulder more than necessary. Once it was off, Steve took it, holding it in his good hand. For a moment, her gaze lingered on the pale, faded scar beneath his collarbone. One that she remembered kissing once. There was another one on his bicep, still raw-looking – a remnant from the plane crash that hadn’t yet had time to heal. She was pleased to see it appeared healthy, courtesy of Epione’s balm, no doubt.

She examined a smattering of bruises splattered over his shoulder, her hand moving ever so gently over it as she felt for fractures and swelling. It wasn’t dislocated, thankfully. Only bruised, though she imagined it didn’t feel nice, either.

From this close, she could feel the heat of Steve’s body, see the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. He no longer smelled of gunpowder and dust and smoke. Instead, she caught the scent of her body wash on him. Of her shampoo. It pleased her more than she expected something like this would—as though he no longer belonged to the violent past that had brought them together. As though she had claimed him as hers.

Diana sensed him turn his head, his breath warm, falling on her cheek. She heard him inhale unsteadily, so close to her, the undercurrent of tension between them building and building until she could feel the fine hairs on her body stand on end. She only needed to tilt her own head slightly for their lips to brush. She knew he wanted her to.

Her fingers lingered on his skin for another moment, and then Diana took a step back, and only then she allowed herself to lift her face and meet his eyes again.

He looked confused, a frown lodged between his brows and hurt lurking behind his eyes, leaving her resenting herself for being the cause of it. As though the last thing he had said to her a century ago wasn’t a profession of love. As though she hadn’t spent the time since then missing him and longing for him and wishing for him to return. And here he was, standing in her kitchen, shirtless and barefoot, looking as lost as she had been when he had first brought her to his world.

Diana was suddenly struck by the absurdity of it all.

What the Dreamstone had done to her, how it used Diana’s memories and heartache against her in 1984 wasn’t Steve’s fault. He was not to blame for the grief she had had to learn to live with all over again. And it sure wasn’t his fault that something, somehow had brought him back to life, either.

“It’s not dislocated,” she said, at last, finding it in her to break the pause hanging between them.

A shadow of disappointment passed across Steve’s features. Whatever it was that he was expecting to hear, that was not it.

“I could’ve told you that,” he said, offering her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, which remained wary and assertive, studying her as though she was a creature he didn’t understand.

Suddenly, she couldn’t bear the thought of punishing him for her fears, however inadvertently. Couldn’t stand the distance between them, but not knowing how to cross it.

Funny how Diana had had enough time to imagine just about every scenario of their possible reunion, yet not one of them had gone as stilted and wrong in her head.

Steve started to put on his shirt again, and she moved towards him to help. She didn’t step away after that. Instead, she smoothed her palms down his chest, biting back an unbidden smile when he glanced down and rolled his eyes a little, still decidedly unimpressed by his attire.

And then he lifted his hand, catching one of hers and holding it pressed against his chest, his heart thumping into her palm. Even through the thin cotton of the shirt, Diana could feel the warmth of him. She watched him trace his thumb over her knuckles, his skin calloused. She thought of that night they had spent together, and how his touch ignited something inside of her that had never been there before. And how it had been burning in her chest since.

She looked up, her eyes travelling over his face, studying him while he studied her back. She must look different to him, Diana thought. Not only her clothes, but in the way she had learned to carry herself and speak and interact with the world around her. 

She wondered if he liked what he was seeing.

She turned her hand, curling her fingers around his and stepped back.

“Come with me.”

He followed her down the hallway, past the darkened living room and the bathroom. She paused at the door to her bedroom, dark, save for the silver moonlight filtering in through the curtains.

His gaze swept over the room – the bed with the headboard pressed against the wall opposite from them and nightstands on either side of it, a fireplace to the right and the slightly ajar door to the closet. A chest of drawers beside the light curtains that covered the door leading out onto a small balcony overlooking the city.

Standing beside him, Diana was overcome with a sense of déjà vu, her mind taking her to a moment a long time ago when Steve had paused in the doorway to another room, surveying it briefly before he stepped aside to let her in. There was no snow outside the window now, no voices singing below in celebration and the sheets on her bed were fine Egyptian cotton, but the memory of that night was stronger than anything she could see and touch right now. So much so that she could almost feel the faint smell of smoke and damp cold sneaking in between the window frames.

“Steve,” she called after another moment had passed and he appeared to be frozen in his spot.

He turned to her and glanced down at their still joined hands. 

“Diana, maybe I should—” he began, his gaze darting back towards the living room where a reading lamp was on and a couch was sitting in front of the second fireplace.

He probably should, she thought. She should find spare sheets and a pillow and a blanket and bid him goodnight. She shouldn’t have brought him here at all, come to think of it. Not until she knew what had happened, and how, and why.

Instead, she moved to him until they were standing so close that they were breathing the same air and she felt her sense of reason evaporate, replaced by consuming fear that she was going to wake up in an empty apartment, alone in her bed. That he was going to vanish into nothingness, like he had in so many nightmares she had had before.

Diana lifted her free hand, tracing his bottom lip with her thumb. “Sleep with me,” she whispered.

A shuddering exhale tumbled out of Steve’s chest. He ducked his head until their foreheads were resting together and closed his eyes.

“What about the, ah… the confines of marriage?” he asked, a faint trace of amusement in his voice.

She wondered just how much of a testament to his exhaustion was that he hadn’t pointed out the suggestiveness of her request.

She felt her lips curl up a little at the corners all the same.

“Never stopped us before, did it?”

He looked at her then, his eyes dark with heat, leaving Diana feeling like she was balancing on the edge of a knife. His gaze moved over her features, before dropping to her mouth the way she knew it would.

She didn’t fight the impulse to tilt her head this time, her lips brushing lightly against his. They lingered on the corner of his mouth for the moment that it took him to turn his head, kissing her back, his hand sliding to rest on the back of her neck.

“You look beautiful,” Steve murmured against her mouth after he drew back.

She smiled, her fingers trailing along his jaw. “You look exhausted.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, well… I haven’t slept for a century, apparently.”

Diana stepped back and tugged at his hand.

“Come.”

She pulled the covers off and he climbed in. She hesitated for a moment, debating changing out of her dress pants, but then climbed in after him, choosing to forgo the sleepwear. Steve rolled onto his side to face her, his hand falling on the pillow between them, palm up. Diana folded her arm beneath her head, facing him, and slid her other hand into his, lacing their fingers together. She wanted to kiss him again, but there it was again, the small voice in the back of her mind, holding her off, cautioned against the  risk of heartache.

“Sleep,” Diana said, softly.

He moved their hands towards him, kissing her knuckles. She thought that he was going to say something, but eventually, he simply lowered his head onto the pillow once more. He slipped off almost immediately, his hold on her hand loosening and his breathing evening out, growing deeper.

Diana studied him in the dark — the familiar planes of his face, the shadows caused by his lashes on his cheeks, his lips slightly parted and the thin coating of stubble along his jaw making her hands itch to touch it.

It was only in the moments before she also dozed off that she remembered the amulet that Bruce has acquired from John Constantine. She had completely forgotten about it, having never gone back to her office. As she remembered about it now, she realized that the power surge and Steve’s miraculous appearance seemed to have coincided with the moment she had touched it.

Which likely meant that if Steve was indeed real, it was not going to last. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter was quite a rollercoaster of emotions. The next few chapters will be heavy on "Steve getting acquainted with the future" content (because it is the absolute best thing to write, I swear), and I'll try to answer at least some of the How's and Why's that have come up already. If that's your thing, please be sure to stay tuned! 
> 
> Thank you for making it this far :) Comments and general yelling are always much, much appreciated! 
> 
> And... I'll see you next week!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you for the love you're giving this story, it means the world to me! I really do hope you will continue to enjoy it :)

Steve awoke to the bright sunlight slanting through the crack between the curtains and filling the room with more light than he wanted to deal with. He was sprawled diagonally across the bed, his face pressed into a pillow that smelled nicely of something fresh and sweet; something that stirred memories that he couldn’t immediately grasp.

He’d had a dream, the remnants of it still lingering in the back of his mind like a shadow, but try as he might, he couldn’t recall what it was about. Something good. Something that made waking up less than thrilling.

He blinked his eyes open, grimacing at the light, and craned his neck to look around.

The room was bright and large and decorated in pleasant pastels, the bed taking up most of it. The closet door stood half-ajar and through the crack, he could see clothes hanging within in a neat row. There was a book on the nightstand, its title in French. He squinted at it for a moment, trying to place it, his mind groggy and something about the emptiness of the place making him—

It all came rushing back then. Ludendorff and the gas; Diana on the outskirts of Veld, telling him it was his fault; pressing the watch into her hands and leaving her forever. And then appearing in 2018, somehow.

Slowly, Steve realized that was what he’d had mistaken for a dream, when he’d awoken. This new reality.

He surveyed the room around him once more, before casting his eyes down at the clothes Diana had given him to wear the night before. Not a dream, he confirmed, sitting up and pushing the covers aside. No way he would make this stuff up.

The details still felt fuzzy, the memory of taking the cab from the Louvre and then, eventually, falling asleep with Diana curled up next to him feeling like something he had dreamed up. Something he knew he  _ had  _ dreamed of before – on the boat, that night they had left the island.

Which made him wonder where Diana was and if there was any way to ask her a few questions to clarify a thing or two that wouldn’t make him sound like a complete lunatic.

Steve looked around once again, as though she may have materialized out of thin air, but the room remained empty, and for a moment, his stomach dropped in fear that maybe she had been some crazy illusion of a dead man and had long since gone, disappearing into nothing. It was only when he detected the faint smell of coffee coming from the hallway that his heartbeat settled a little.

He climbed out of the bed, wincing at the soreness of his muscles. It might have been a hundred years for Diana, but his body still remembered every moment of the fight with Maru’s men that had only happened some 36 hours before, for him. Give or take. He rolled his shoulder carefully, remembering her gentle touch as she’d examined it the previous evening. There was a ghost of a memory hovering in the periphery of his awareness of waking up in the dark with his arms wrapped around her body and his face buried in her hair, but he couldn’t say with certainty if that had actually happened or not.

There was a photograph sitting on the bedside table, a framed newspaper article beneath polished glass. It took Steve a moment to realize that he was looking at a photo of himself, a little blurry, the letters of the text faded somewhat. It made his heart twist in his chest, making him feel odd for not spotting it last night even though he knew he had been so tired he wouldn’t have noticed anything, even if he’d wanted to.

The parquet floor was warm beneath his bare feet as he walked towards the door and pulled it open, listening for signs of life inside the apartment. There was a slight, barely audible hum that Steve remembered from the previous evening as belonging to the refrigerator in the kitchen — a massive one that made him wonder how much exactly people in the future needed to eat. It had looked shiny and new, too, and reminded him of what he’d imagined space ships would look like when he was a child and read about them in a book.

The bathroom where he had taken a shower the night before was right across the hall from the bedroom — he hadn’t noticed that before, either. Steve passed what looked like a study, with a desk and an odd device sitting on top of it that looked like a half-open book, turned sideways, and two massive bookshelves rising all the way to the ceiling. It, too, was flooded with the morning sunlight. And just like the bedroom, it was empty.

He walked past the living room, choosing to believe that he would have time to have a better look at it later, and finally, he found Diana in the kitchen.

She was leaning against the marble counter running along one of the walls, a cup of tea in her hand and that flat black thing he had seen her use the night before in another, her finger moving over it, though Steve couldn’t tell what it was that she was doing with it. And he still didn’t know what it was, for that matter.

She had changed into tight pants and a loose-fitting shirt. Her hair was down, falling over her shoulders in heavy waves and making Steve itch to bury his fingers into it the way he had done before, and she was barefoot now. It was the oddest thing to notice that her toenails appeared to be painted pale beige.

She took a sip of her tea and put the mug down on the counter beside her, her fingers sliding over her black… thingy. In that moment, Steve didn’t even care what it was, content to simply stare at her forever, with the sunlight tangled in her hair and her features relaxed and serene. He thought of the first time he had ever seen her, hovering over him, the sun shining above them creating a halo around her head and making him wonder for a brief moment if maybe he had died and gone to heaven.

He had always thought that that would be the moment he would remember most vividly about Diana. But looking at her now, he was suddenly overcome with desire to sear this image in his mind and carry it with him for as long as he walked this Earth.

He stayed perfectly still, taking her in until, half a minute later, she looked up, finally noticing him.

“Good morning,” she said, a smile tugging the corners of her mouth upwards and making his stomach flop wildly.

“Morning,” Steve echoed, his voice suddenly hoarse. He cleared his throat and repeated, “Morning.”

“Did you sleep well?” Diana asked.

He had, strangely enough, Steve realized. He hadn’t expected to. Her question though made him acutely aware of the fact that on his last morning in 1918, he had awoken with Diana in his arms. Unlike today. Funnily, he hadn’t dreamed of anything then, either. He was remembering that now, too.

“Yeah, I…” He cleared his throat again. “It was good.”

Her smile widened, the corners of her eyes crinkling. 

He wanted to tell her that she was beautiful. He suspected that she knew that, and wondered how many people had told her just that over the course of a hundred years. Many, if he had to take a guess. But that didn’t mean that she didn’t deserve to hear it from him as well.

But then he remembered that strange moment last night and the proverbial wall going up between them, the shadow behind her eyes when she had looked at him after she had checked his shoulder. She had been the one to kiss him, true, and that should have soothed him. But it didn’t for reasons Steve couldn’t quite explain even to himself yet.

So instead, he jerked his chin towards the black thing in her hand and asked, “What’s that?”

Diana glanced down and then up at him. He could see that she was trying not to laugh. 

“It’s my phone,” she explained.

She turned her hand and opened her palm. A black glass screen stared back at Steve, perfectly smooth.

He lifted his gaze to her face, convinced that she was making fun of him.

“A phone?” he repeated, skeptically. “Then where’s the cord? And… and the receiver? And other stuff?”

Her smile widened, turning into something entirely majestic and making him forget about his initial question altogether. Based on the amusement dancing in her eyes, he suspected that he had just said something entirely ridiculous. 

He thought immediately of her demanding to know what women of his time wore into battle and whether a corset was a type of armour, feeling the colour rise up the back of his neck when it dawned on him just how out of his depth he was. More so than she had been a hundred years ago, perhaps. The enormity of it was making the world sway a little around him.

Diana pushed away from the counter and moved towards him.

“Let me show you.”

She brought her phone to life by pressing a small button on the side, the screen lighting up in vivid colour. Steve felt his eyes widen and his jaw go a little slack while she explained to him the basic principles of what they called mobile phones. Which, to his surprise, wasn’t really that much different from a radio, in essence. But that was where the similarities ended, as no radio he had ever seen before had been able to play videos or connect a person instantly to someone half a world away.

She walked him through making phone calls, and then something called  _ texting, _ which was like sending a very quick letter that only took seconds to arrive. Then there was electronic mail, which sounded a little more complicated but also allowed for longer messages. By the time they reached voice-mail—which sounded pretty self-explanatory, except it wasn’t, not really—Steve’s mind was swimming.

Phones in the twenty-first century, as it turned out, were massive storage devices that also acted as a photo camera, and a video camera, and allowed people to keep track of news and connect with others simultaneously through what Diana explained was called applications.

Steve stared at her fingers that moved easily over the small screen, bringing up images and programs, unable to utter a word.

It was when she lifted her hand to tuck a piece of hair that had fallen over her cheek behind her ear that it occurred to Steve how close she was standing. Close enough that he could smell that flowery shampoo on her and feel the warmth of her skin. Something that derailed his train of thought momentarily.

“Steve?”

He blinked, zeroing in on the moment again, only then realizing that he was staring at her with his mouth agape. Her expression softened. His eyes drifted to her lips, unbidden, and he wondered if she was going to kiss him again. Like last night. If she’d mind if he kissed her.

His mouth went dry at the thought, his heart giving a dull, hollow thud against his ribs.

“Perhaps we should start with something simple,” Diana offered, smiling.

“No, no,” he protested quickly, snapping his gaze back up to her eyes and feeling the tops of his cheeks grow hot. “This is…” he trailed off and cleared his throat. “So, everyone has a phone like this now?”

“Pretty much.”

It sounded… overwhelming.

Steve rubbed the back of his neck.

“And you can take pictures with it?” he clarified, again. “Like a camera?” 

She bit her lip. “Yes.”

He shook his head, chuckling under his breath, and then scrubbed a hand down his face.

He tried not to think of all the other things that were probably as crazy. Like were their cars flying now? Could they control time? He ended up thinking of it all anyway, feeling a little dizzy. 

Diana watched him, and while he pondered where to even begin asking her more questions, hungry for everything she could tell him, her expression suddenly turned troubled and unreadable. Steve frowned, feeling his brows knit together.

The moment stretched between them, making him feel a gaping abyss between them. Him still stuck in 1918, and her—light years ahead of him.

He wanted to ask her if she could feel it, too.

“What were you doing when I came in?” he asked instead. “Were you on—” he searched his mind for the names of various programs she had given him. “On email?”

Diana pressed her lips around a smile. “No, I was texting my assistant to cancel my meetings for today.”

Steve paused. “Assistant?” he echoed.

“A secretary,” she explained.

This time, it was his turn to smile. “Someone who goes where you tell them to go and does what you tell them to do?” he teased.

She laughed. “Something like that.”

Like Etta. Steve didn’t say that.

Up until that moment, the ramifications of somehow travelling a hundred years into the future hadn’t occurred to him, not really. All he had thought about was that he was alive, and that so was Diana, and that even though everything had changed and the world as he had known it didn’t exist anymore, it still meant that maybe, just maybe, they finally had time. He was not yet clear on her stance on the matter, but there was just enough hope to make his heart beat faster.

Or maybe it was just her that did that. Either way, it was not a bad thing.

But it was hitting him now how long a century was. Steve’s last memory of Etta was her saying goodbye outside of the pub where they had come to find Charlie and where Sir Patrick had come to offer them his support in the mission against Ludendorff. He hadn’t yet considered the fact that Etta had been long dead. And Charlie, and Sammy, and Chief, all of them gone, and Steve didn’t even know how it happened or when.

And it was too much, too monumental, and he felt his chest grow tight from the tidal wave of grief that was too much for his heart to contain.

He could feel Diana’s gaze on him, and when he lifted his eyes, he found her studying him.

“Why did you want everything cancelled?” he inquired, desperately pushing the thoughts about his losses away for now, certain that something inside of him would break beyond repair if he had allowed that void of despair to suck him in before he was ready to deal with it.

“So I could spend the day with you.”

He blinked. “Oh.”

“We need to buy you some clothes,” she continued, smoothing the palm of her hand over his chest. She gave him a pointed once-over. “Unless you would rather prefer to wear this, of course.”

She laughed at what must have been the horrified look on his face.

“Clothes would be good,” Steve said, hastily, all too aware of her nearness and the warmth of her touch and the way her eyes were so full of life. 

She had smiled at him like that before, last night—the one they had shared back in his time. Afterwards, when they had talked, and when he was begging time to slow down and give him another  _ moment-minute-hour  _ with her. It certainly did not help that talking about clothes reminded him of the last time both of them wore none, together, which made the back of his neck grow hot once more.

“Alright, then,” Diana said quietly. “Why don’t you have some coffee while I get changed, and then we can find something to eat, afterwards? When we’re done?”

Steve nodded automatically. His eyes darted towards the coffee maker that seemed to be straightforward enough, even for someone like him, and then up at Diana. But by then, she was already walking away.

* * *

When Diana walked out of the bedroom, dressed in a pair of black pants and a plain long-sleeved t-shirt, her hair gathered into a loose knot at the base of her neck, Steve was standing in front of the toaster, face scrunched into a confused frown and a second cup of coffee—based on the emptiness of the pot—in his hand.

She paused in the doorway, allowing herself to study him before he noticed her.

That morning, she had awoken at dawn the way she always did—centuries of habit unbeatable even after a hundred years when there was no beach outside her bedroom window and no one was expecting her to rouse before sunlight. 

She must have shifted sometime in the night, sliding closer to him as Steve had been curled around her, his chest pressed to her back and his arm slung over her waist—a pleasant weight that had reminded her of another morning, in another time. Of slipping out of his embrace to start the fire in the hearth again, their room freezing cold, and of Steve pulling her back into bed to love her again because they had time.

Last night, Diana had stayed awake for hours after he had drifted off, half-certain he would be gone when she’d wake in the morning. Then, when she’d slid out of his grasp to take a shower, she had feared she would find her bed empty afterwards. And leaving him to go change minutes ago, she had wondered if she would walk into an empty kitchen.

But there he was, now studying her crockpot sitting on the counter with an expression so dumbfounded she couldn’t help but smile, her heart growing ten times its size in her chest. But she could already feel the looming dread of separation, her soul bracing itself for the impact of it.

Steve noticed her out of the corner of his eyes and straightened up. He had changed out of the borrowed sweatpants, she noticed, though he’d kept the t-shirt. 

His eyes travelled up and down her body, his jaw dropping just a little as his eyes lingered on her legs. It occurred to Diana then that he may not have ever seen a woman wearing pants before. Or, at least, he was not accustomed to it the way everyone else was.

If she had to venture a guess, she’d say that he liked what he was seeing.

“Ready?” Diana asked, trying to bite back her smile.

He snapped his eyes up, traitorous colour rising up his face. Considering that they had done more than just looking, before, she found his reaction more endearing than she expected.

“Ready?” he echoed, momentarily confused. “Ready, yes! Clothes. I’m ready.” 

He looked at the mug in his hand, uncertain what to do with it, and then put it on the counter. Diana tried not to laugh at the sight of him giving the crockpot another skeptical look.

She pulled on a light jacket while Steve put on his socks and boots. He hesitated briefly then, before sliding his arms into the sleeves of his overcoat. He glanced at her outfit and then himself, a slight frown finding its way back between his brows.

As a spy who was used to blending in, she thought, he decidedly did not like the idea of standing out.

He followed Diana out of the apartment and into the elevator, his eyes following the movement of her hand as she pressed the button for the ground floor. He looked a little dazed, more so than he had yesterday. She wondered if it had something to do with her kitchen appliances—she made a mental note to explain everything to him later, properly—or if it was something else. But she wasn’t sure how to ask.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, moving to stand closer to him.

Steve turned to her, his gaze finding hers.

“Is this real?” he murmured, his voice full of such desperation that it made everything inside of her ache.

It gave her a pause, too. Ever since she had found him last night, confused and perplexed, Diana had been wondering if he was going to dissipate like a billow of smoke right before her eyes. She had never once considered the possibility that he was thinking the exact same thing.

The realization left her feeling ashamed. She didn’t know how to comfort him, or what promises she could make—were there any that she could keep?

She reached for his hand, fingers brushing lightly against his knuckles before she slipped her palm into his.

“I want to believe so,” she whispered.

Steve ducked his head closer to hers.

“Diana, I—”

The door opened behind her with a ding, making him pull back with a jolt, his eyes trained over Diana’s shoulder. She turned around to find an older man standing just outside, eyeing them curiously as he waited for them to vacate the elevator.

“My apologies, Monsieur,” Diana said.

Steve started to pull his hand from her hold, but she gripped it tighter as she pulled him past the man and into the foyer. He glanced at her, and squeezed her fingers.

Diana paused near the desk of the day concierge. “Claude, this is Monsieur Steve Trevor, he will be staying with me,” she said, introducing Steve to the older man on the other side of the counter.

He smiled at her. “Of course, Mademoiselle Prince.” Then he turned to Steve. “Monsieur. Welcome.”

Steve nodded at him, and the tightness in Diana’s chest eased a little bit more.  _ He is real, _ she told herself.  _ He is here. _ She wondered if there would come a time when she would stop looking for proof of that.

There was a small voice in the back of Diana’s mind reminding her that this wasn’t over yet. That people didn’t come back to life simply because they were loved and missed and longed for. That there was an amulet sitting on the desk in her office at the Louvre that may be the key to answering all of her questions—but that was something that she wasn’t yet prepared to think of, not yet.

Then there was John Constantine and the connection between them that Diana didn’t quite understand, or like. If he was behind Steve’s resurrection, Diana couldn’t see his motives or reasoning. They barely knew each other. There had to be something, she thought. There always was, and part of her itched to jump into unravelling that knot of mysteries immediately. 

But there was also a part of her that was adamant to hold on to the miracle of having Steve back, consequences and the rest of the world be damned. Of having him look at her the way no one else had ever had, her name on his lips like a prayer, each time.

Once again, she wondered, the way she had in 1984, what would she be willing to sacrifice to keep him with her.

She feared that whatever choice she made, it was going to hurt them both in the end, one way or another.

They stepped into the bright sunlight, greeted by a gust of wind that brought a smell of freshly brewed coffee and pastries from a café across the street. Steve’s eyes were drawn to it immediately and to the people sitting on the patio outside even despite the chilly bite of autumn in the air as more people hurried up and down the street around them.

It occurred to Diana then that this wasn’t just the future for him. That this was the first time he was seeing the world without war in a way he hadn’t seen it in a long, long time. He hadn’t asked about that yet, not past them ending it part, but she couldn’t help but try to imagine what it must be like for him to experience all this. To see the result of something that he had died fighting for.

He turned to her, a shadow passing across his features. A hundred years was a long time for her to learn to read people, but try as she might, she couldn’t put her finger on what it was that she was seeing on his face. And then it was gone, leaving streaks of sunlight that highlighted his stubble and caught in his tousled hair.

He smiled at her, and Diana’s heart clenched fiercely with affection.

“So, where to?” he asked.

She led him towards where her car was parked half a block down the street, in the shade of trees lining the sidewalk. She pulled a key fob from the pocket of her jacket and unlocked it. The hazard lights blinked at them once in response.

She let go of Steve’s hand and, glancing around for traffic, started towards the driver’s door. It was only when she opened it and was about to slide in that she noticed that he hadn’t followed her. Instead, he was standing a few feet away, his eyes wide as saucers as he took her car in—a sleek, black sedan, equally elegant and practical in the city.

It dawned on Diana then that he had never seen anything like it before, either—sure, they had taken a cab from the museum last night, but he probably hadn’t been paying much attention to anything then.

He was certainly doing it now.

Steve looked up, meeting her eyes over the roof of the car.

“Is this yours?” he asked, in awe.

Diana tried to keep a straight face. “Yes.”

Instinctively, he looked up and down the street, noticing the other vehicles parked at the curb, his mouth dropping open a little. Her fingers, still curled over the door handle, flexed, itching to trail over the line of his jaw, drawing his attention back to her.

“And everyone drives cars like this?” Steve clarified as he turned to her again.

Diana thought of the cars parked in Bruce’s garage in Gotham and what Steve would think of them, if he ever got a chance to see them. Low, sports cars that bordered on art. The jet and the Fox and the Crawler, hidden in the Batcave. 

She had told Bruce once that she had known a man a long time ago who would have loved to fly one of his planes. Judging by the look on Steve’s face, the sentiment still stood true.

The thought made her smile.

“Something like this, yes,” she agreed.

“Wow, that’s…” He rubbed the back of his neck. He squinted in the sunlight, his gaze sliding over her car once again as he let the end of the phrase hang in the air. When their eyes met, he looked lost.

“We could walk,” Diana offered. 

“No. No, it’s…” he huffed out a breath and moved towards the passenger door, pulling it open. “No,” he repeated. “This is—this is good.”

She smirked and slid into the driver’s seat. “Well, if this is good, maybe I’ll let  _ you _ drive later.”

Steve, who was busy figuring out the logistics of buckling his seat belt, paused and looked up.

“Really?”

Diana slid the key into the ignition and started the engine, aware of his gaze on her as though it was something palpable.

“We’ll see.”

* * *

The last car Steve remembered having been in was the one that Sameer had driven to deliver them both to the German High Command. A rickety thing that had smelled strongly of exhaust and made his teeth chatter on every bump, the leather seat forcing him to grip the door handle lest he slide to the floor each time Sami made a turn.

Last night, in the back of a cab, the only thing that had registered with him was a faint smell of vanilla and how roomy it had been. Enough for him to sit close to Diana but far enough away from the driver that it had almost felt as though they had been completely alone.

Now, in the passenger seat of Diana’s vehicle—one that she drove expertly down busy streets of a busier city—he couldn’t help but stare at all the buttons and controls on the dashboard. It smelled nice, too—like something fresh, and new leather, and Diana’s perfume. Something that had taken him all of ten hours to learn to recognize, he thought as he cast a look towards her out of the corner of his eye.

Though Steve wasn’t sure where exactly they were going, it wasn’t a long drive. And he spent a good half of it fiddling with the heater settings and the radio, and once, he even accidentally opened the roof window—why would you even need a window in the roof?!—and then pressed the other buttons frantically to get it to close.

Diana didn’t say anything, her eyes staying on the road the entire time, only deviating towards him once or twice. But when Steve glanced at her to check if she was bothered by his interest, she was smirking. He felt the heat of embarrassment rise up his cheeks, suddenly aware of how out of place he must seem to her here, in this time, in the world that was probably more hers than his by now. He straightened up, leaning away from all the screens and buttons and sinking back into his seat, his eyes swinging to the view outside the window for the first time.

If the city he had seen last night was sparkling with lights, now it was bustling with life, so vibrant and colourful he didn’t know how to process it.

At some point, his eyes snatched a man out of a crowd wearing faded jeans that were hanging so low off his hips that his underwear was showing. His hair was coloured in at least three different shades of pink and there was a silver hoop piercing his left eyebrow. Steve wasn’t sure if his jacket was intentionally meant to look like it had never been washed or if it was just filthy. But his own outfit stopped looking and feeling all that awkward to him all of a sudden.

He tried to remember the last time he had seen a place so… normal (black makeup and chains decorating someone else’s clothes aside), and came up empty. Had to be sometime before he was sent to Europe, he thought absently, but the images were muddled and unfocused in his head. As though the war had divided everything inside of him into  _ before _ and  _ after, _ and the before part was so out of reach now that he wouldn’t know how to find it even if he knew where to look.

Diana’s hand brushed against his, briefly, jolting him to attention.

Steve whipped his head around.

“It’s alright,” she said, glancing at him before her focus returned to the road ahead as they pulled to a stop at a red light.

“Hm?”

“It’s alright that you are curious, Steve. I don’t mind.”

“I don’t want to break anything,” he murmured.

She appeared to be amused by that. “You won’t break anything.”

He grabbed hold of her hand before she pulled it away and lifted it to his lips, brushing a kiss to her fingertips. She left her fingers interlaced with his until the end of their drive.

Diana parked the car under the shade of a tree, joining a long row of other shiny cars. She slid out of it gracefully, and Steve hurried after her, fumbling for a moment with the buckle of the seatbelt. When he joined her on the sidewalk, she pressed a small button on a black keyring attached to the car key and the lights blinked again. He figured it was how locks worked in the future, but didn’t ask, watching her glance up and down the street as she considered something.

She turned to him after another moment, and like every time she had ever looked at him, Steve’s heart twisted in his chest with longing so intense he could barely breathe past it. How could he be so in love with her after knowing her for only a handful of days was beyond him, but here he was, certain that he would gladly follow her to the edge of the world, if she so pleased.

“Where would you like to start?” she asked, moving closer to him, her eyes searching his face. “Food or clothes?”

Truth be told, Steve couldn’t recall the last time he had eaten. Probably the morning before he had died. By the time he and Diana had made it downstairs, his boys had already had their breakfast. The innkeeper had informed Steve that they had headed out to check on the horses, last thing she’d heard. She had been gracious enough to save him and Diana their meals. That glass of champagne he had had at the gala later probably didn’t really count.

He’d felt a little queasy and slightly nauseated the night before, certain he would have gotten sick if he had taken Diana up on her offer to get him something to eat. But he could feel it now, the gnawing feeling of hunger in his stomach, made worse by the smell of fresh bread wafting towards them from a bakery a couple doors down the street. So much so that it had left Steve nearly salivating over the loaves in the display window.

But then there were these clothes that he was itching to get out of, even if he was going to be forced to wear pants hanging lower than his underwear or anything with metal studs and chains.

Diana smoothed her hand down the lapel of his overcoat, which was, admittedly a good overcoat, but if he could get rid of it as well, he wouldn’t mind in the slightest.

“Steve?”

He glanced towards the bakery once more, and then at people around them, their hands laden with shopping bags.

It didn’t really matter, in the long run, he thought.

He turned to her.

_ They have breakfast, _ Steve remembered telling her.  _ They really love their breakfast. And they love to wake up, read the paper and go to work. _

He had no paper on him, and he wondered if the prospect of work was in the cards for him anytime soon, though he would have to figure something out, eventually. But they could have breakfast now. He had no doubt that she had had enough opportunities to experience what people did when there were no wars to fight in the time since he’d been gone. But they had never done it together, before. Not when there was no war waiting for them.

“Food,” he said decisively.

Diana smiled that pretty smile that touched her eyes. He was suddenly made aware that  _ Butterflies in my stomach _ wasn’t merely a figure of speech.

“I should have guessed,” she murmured, her tone teasing.

A joke about not eating for a hundred years leaped to his tongue, but he managed to swallow it, cringing a little on the inside.

Steve glanced around, before turning to her again.

“Lead the way.”

They barely managed to take a few steps before the sound of artillery fire shattered the air, ricocheting down the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know some of you are new and don't yet know the extent of how mean I am yet. And the truth is - yes, I love evil cliffhangers. I really do love them and there will be quite a few of them in this fic, although I'm trying to contain myself. Truly, I am. 
> 
> And speaking of being evil... As I'm doing my best to tie up all the loose ends and such, next I'll do an update for [A Road Paved In Gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11508576/chapters/25824168). Those of you who are following it, please feel free to refresh your memory :) Those of you who are not - have a look at it, if you feel like it. 
> 
> Anyway, feedback is love, we writers thrive on it so please let me know what you think of this chapter :) 
> 
> Again, thank you for reading. You guys have been so wonderful and I hope you'll stick around to see how this story ends!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone :) It's really nice to be back to sharing this story again. A million thanks to you all for all the love and support you have been giving this fic, I appreciate it beyond words! 
> 
> This story was mostly meant to be my lockdown distraction project. The 2020 lockdown, that it - who knows how many of those we'll have? And then suddenly unbeknownst to me, I developed some real feelings towards this fic. While I did an odd "Steve in the future" fic here and there, they were all one-shots and I never quite got to dive into his perception of the world in the 21st century as deeply as I'm doing it here. It is oddly fascinating to write him all wide-eyed and confused, and I know that Steve is the same Steve in all of my fics, technically, but I would probably legitimately die for this one. So yeah, I really do hope you will enjoy everything I have in store for you :)

The first time Steve had flown during the war was also the first time he had been hit.

The missile had come from a thicket of forest far below him, one that was encircling what they had believed to be a destroyed and abandoned village. 

He had felt the shudder running through his plane, half of the left wing shaved off clean in an instant. The smell of smoke had come next, filling the small cockpit with an acrid scent that had made his eyes water and his throat burn. His hands had gripped the yoke so tight he feared he would never be able to unclench them again in an attempt to level the body of the plane, searching for a current of air that could take him towards the field he could see in the distance. If he made it there, he had known he would be able to land, somehow.

He had never made it that far.

With one last jolt, the nose of the plane had dipped forward, the wind whistling through the cockpit and making everything blur before his eyes. He could see the trees rushing towards him faster than he ever thought was possible, gnarly branches waiting to grab him and tear him and his plane to shreds.

That was when the panic had set in, fuelled by the distant staccato of firing guns, the flashes of exploding gunpowder like tiny fireworks below him.

They had known where he was going to crash, and they had been hurrying towards the forest, to finish the job if the fall didn’t kill him.

With a shaking hand, he had reached for his handgun, checking the ammunition. And then he had yanked at the yoke as hard as he could, trying to level the plane one last time as its belly grazed over the treetops in hope that he would manage to avoid nose-diving into the cold mud, made worse but a solid week of non-stop rain.

The plane had barrelled through the trees, branches scratching along the fuselage and catching on the sleeves of Steve’s jacket as he had tried to hold on for dear life and not get impaled in the process. It had started to get dark, the shadows growing thick close to the ground. In the distance, he could hear voices shouting, the noise of people making their way towards him, not trying to conceal themselves because they knew he had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He could hear rapid shots getting fired, too, and on the other side of the forest was the front, the ground beneath the carcass of his mangled plane shaking with explosions of cannon.

He had all but rolled out of the cockpit, his legs shaky beneath him as adrenaline continued to rush through his system, blood roaring in his ears, so deafening he could hardly hear anything else. A deadly curse in a situation when a sound of a twig breaking beneath the sole of his boot could end his life.

They had been closing in on him, on them, the base camp that he had been trying to get to surrounded now, his progress towards his battalion painted bright red with blood.

It was in that forest that he had taken his first life, shooting a German soldier twice in his chest and then turning away from the man’s limp body and getting violently sick. It was in that forest that he had learned to recognize the sounds that different firearms made, all of them forever etched into his brain. He had never been more tired or more scared or more ready to give up than he was then, cowering behind a fallen log, his hands slippery with sweat on his handgun as he had tried to reload it, his fingers trembling and his lungs burning from exertion.

It had felt like a nightmare, only a thousand times worse because there was no waking up from it, no ending it. There was only the late-March cold sneaking under his too-thin coat and the fear running through his veins like poison and a never-ending chorus of shots being fired, a sound that Steve had continued to hear for days afterwards, ringing in his ears as though it had never stopped.

He had hoped that it was over, but now he was there again, hiding away from the rain of bullets, the smell of gunpowder coating the inside of his lungs. No escape, no salvation, no—

“Steve?”

Steve sucked in a breath, and then another one, following the sound of the voice.

He blinked his eyes open to find Diana’s face before him, her eyes wide and confused and worried.

He felt the cold hand unclench from around his stomach. His hands were shaking.  _ He  _ was shaking. A shuddering breath rattled out of his chest.

He was not in the forest in Germany. He was—

Steve swallowed and glanced around. He was in a small side alley, the street lined with shops where Diana had left her car bustling with life some ten feet away from them. He didn’t remember how he got there. The last thing he recalled was crouching behind a car as he had pawed at his side for the gun that must have been destroyed by the explosion in 1918, his heart hammering out of his chest…

He turned back to Diana slowly, the painful tightness in his chest easing, somewhat.

Her hands were on his face, stroking his cheeks, tracing the line of his jaw. She was saying something to him, a low murmur of comfort. Steve wasn’t even sure it was in English, and quite frankly, he didn’t really care.

“Diana…” he rasped, and stopped, swallowing again, his mouth dry.

She leaned closer to him, brushing her hand through his hair. “Shh. Breathe. Please breathe, Steve. Please.”

He didn’t even realize that he wasn’t, not really. That his breaths were coming in short, strained gasps, as though his windpipe was caught in a tight hold. That it hurt, everything hurt, the memory of being hunted like an animal burning something inside of him to ash even now. No human being was meant to ever feel that way. 

His skin was clammy, he felt a trickle of sweat run down his spine beneath his clothes.

Diana tilted her head, lips brushing over his temple, the tenderness of it almost enough to undo him.

“Someone was shooting—”

She shook her head. “A car backfired somewhere down the street,” she interjected, softly. Steve blinked at her. “Everything is alright.”

He took another breath and let it out, slowly, feeling the rush of adrenaline drain out of his system as quickly as it had arrived, leaving him feeling weak and exhausted and somewhat lightheaded. He curled his hand around her wrist, feeling the hammering of her pulse beneath his fingertips, his other hand coming to rest on her hip.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She stroked his cheek, the way she had done the night before. The way she had done in Veld. Steve closed his eyes and leaned forward until his forehead was pressed to hers and there was nothing else. All he could breathe, all he could feel was her, and the damn night when his whole world had fallen apart around him for the first time started to recede into the faint memory it was meant to be.

“Don’t,” she murmured. “You’re safe. It’s alright, you’re safe.”

She brushed her hand through his hair once more, her palm coming to rest curled over his cheek. He could feel her relax too, tight tension seeping out of her body.

“Let’s leave, yes?” Diana offered. “Go home.”

Home, Steve repeated in his mind. There was no home now, only this odd place, and him, someone odder still.

He shook his head and glanced towards the street and the sunlight and the people sitting at the small tables outside cafes. He turned back to Diana. Her hand was still cupped over his cheek, the touch warm and soothing, smoothing out the edges of panic still scraping against his insides.

“No. It’s okay.” She was eyeing him skeptically. “I’m fine, I swear. Let’s do—” His eyes darted towards the traffic and late morning crowd. “Let’s do what we came here to do.” 

“Steve.”

God help him, he loved the way his name sounded when she said it.

He smiled with one corner of his mouth, though he suspected it didn’t come out quite as convincing as he had intended it to be, and turned his face to brush his lips against the heel of her palm.

“I’ll try to remember that we’re not at war anymore.” He considered their plan for a moment, his stomach rolling uncomfortably at the idea of eating, the smell of gunpowder still permeating his senses and lingering on his tongue. The smell of fresh bread that had seemed so alluring only minutes ago was now nauseating. He cleared his throat. “Just… maybe let’s do the clothes first.”

For a moment, Diana looked like she was going to protest, and he probably wouldn’t have fought her too much, Steve knew. But in the end, she glanced away momentarily and then back at him again. And then she nodded and stepped back, her expression smoothing out into something that he failed to interpret.

He followed Diana out of the side alley and back onto the wide avenue they had come from earlier, bracing himself for—for another car backfiring maybe. Or a German attack. Or… something, really. But the crowds on the street appeared to be harmless, albeit a bit noisy for his liking. No one seemed to be paying attention to them, either, and those who did, had their eyes lingering on Diana and not him.

Steve took a breath and willed himself to relax.

He walked after Diana into a  _ La Galerie _ something or other—a shopping arcade filled to the brim with stores and people and music playing somewhere above them. And even though he didn’t understand the fashion and didn’t necessarily approve of colours so bright they nearly made his eyes water, he couldn’t help but feel like he had fallen back through time. Just like that, he was standing in the middle of Selfridge’s as he was introducing Diana and Etta to each other, the air around them filled with the scent of powder and perfume and all things new.

Everything from that moment on felt a bit hazy at the edges.

He watched as Diana sorted through hangers and piles of clothes, picking some and discarding others based on merits Steve couldn’t begin to comprehend and ignoring his apparent distaste each time he wrinkled his nose at the sight of this or that. If anything, she appeared to be amused by his reaction. He wondered if she wanted to comment on him trying to pick clothes for her, that day a long time ago. She hadn’t said anything though, instead ushering him into changing rooms, surveying him critically whenever he would step out from behind a door or a curtain, or, once, a partition.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Steve grumbled at some point, an hour later, after she had shaken her head in disapproval and sent him on to take off the shirt that, for no reason obvious to him, appeared to not be up to her liking.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Diana said from the other side of the curtain in a manner that told him that she very much did.

He pulled the curtain just far enough away to poke his head out into the common space of the changing area and glared at her.

“This is payback, isn’t it?”

“For when you had me try on two hundred different outfits at Selfridge’s?” she clarified innocently.

Steve opened his mouth to protest, and shut it again, yanking the curtain closed once more. He reached for yet another…  _ something, _ just barely resisting tugging on jeans that felt stiff on him, though Diana had assured him that it was normal and the fit was right. Admittedly, they did look good, as opposed to some other things she’d had him try on. Most of the other stuff, on the other hand…

“That was not me,” Steve argued in a heated whisper as he slid one and then another arm into the sleeves of the proffered shirt. “That was Etta. And it wasn’t  _ two hundred _ outfits.”

Diana hummed noncommittally. Even without seeing her face, he knew she was smiling.

“Do you think I would have held onto a grudge for a hundred years, Steve?”

“Well, you’re immortal, aren’t you?” he muttered, lowering his voice. “What’s a hundred years for someone like you?”

He wondered, for a moment, how he would spend his own immortality, if he ever got that lucky. Holding onto grudges didn’t feel like a productive pastime, in the long run. Did she feel time differently? Her memories taking a longer time to fade? Then again, if memory served him right, a bunch of Greek tragedies stemmed from nothing  _ but _ holding grudges and bringing vengeance and being wrathful, and Diana was a direct descendant from the same gods who had spent lifetimes doing just that—

As soon as the thought occurred to Steve, he was shaking his head to himself, as he struggled with buttoning the cuffs, his fingers feeling oddly clumsy.

If there was anyone in the world—hell, in the whole universe—made entirely of love and light, it was her. 

When they had first met, his first impression—one of the first, right after he had stopped staring at her because he had never seen anyone that beautiful before—had been that she was someone who felt very deeply. He didn’t know what she had seen and experienced and been through in the time since that night in 1918 when he had taken their future together away, quite literally incinerating it. It couldn’t have all been nice, though Steve hoped like hell that it wasn’t all bad, either. 

But he didn’t doubt that she felt as deeply and as passionately as when they had first met. And though he would never begrudge her resignation and disappointment, having experienced enough of both himself, he also was certain that she hadn’t changed  _ that  _ much. That it was kindness and fairness that she cared for above all else.

Though, in truth, that day in Selfridge’s had been… unorthodox, to say the least.

Steve sighed and looked up at himself in the mirror. He didn’t know how he felt about, well, anything. It was easy to allow Diana to decide which clothes he should try on and what looked good on him, his own judgement a little skewed. But now that it was just him, he couldn’t quite shake off the feeling of utter bewilderment.

If this was what Alice was meant to feel when she had fallen through a rabbit’s hole and into Wonderland, Steve was grateful that fairy-tales seldom came true.

In the reflection, he saw Diana’s hand curl over the curtain that served as the changing room door, but she didn’t pull it open, hesitating instead.

“May I?”

“Yeah—Yes,” Steve said, quickly tucking the shirt into the waistband of his pants. “Yes.”

She drew it open and stepped inside, crowding the already small space. Briefly, she met his eyes in the reflection, her features softening. When he turned around, she reached to adjust the collar of his shirt before smoothing her palms over his chest.

“It suits you,” she said, quietly, with a wistfulness that Steve failed to place.

He shifted from foot to foot. “Is everything in the future so tight?” he asked, eyeing his pants suspiciously once more. “Are you sure it’s the right size?”

Diana bit her lip around a smile. “I’m sure. And it’s not tight.”

“It looks strange,” he insisted.

“It looks good,” she repeated.

He glanced at her own trousers, and decided that he didn’t really mind tight on her. He was not sure clothes were supposed to squeeze everything, like this, but hers looked flattering. And, well… attractive.

He looked up to find Diana smirking at him, and he pointedly glanced away, pretending to be interested in the price tag attached to the sleeve. And then he frowned a little.

“What the hell is a  _ Euro _ ?” Steve muttered. He lifted his gaze to her face, something finally downing on him. “I don’t have money to pay for any of this.”

“Well, I suppose I owe you for that time you paid for my clothes,” Diana said. He could see that she was trying not to smile, but even so, Steve felt a rush of colour rising up his cheeks.

“You don’t owe me anything—” he started, hastily, and cut off when he realized that she was teasing him. He cleared his throat. “There was also ice-cream,” he said, solemnly.

Diana laughed, the sound of it melting the sharp edges of uncertainty churning in his belly. “Then let me take you to lunch and we’ll call it even, yes?”

“These pants are still tight,” he muttered with defiance under his breath, squirming a little.

She let out a measured sigh. “They are not tight. And they suit you.”

Steve thought of the t-shirt that he had been more than happy to discard earlier, and the man with blue hair he had spotted on their drive, and what Diana had explained to him was called Hawaiian shirts when he had noticed a few sitting in one of the display windows. He looked past her shoulder, scanning the section of the store visible from where he was standing, his eyes growing wide when he spotted a mannequin wearing some sort of a pouch attached to a belt around its hips.

“Are you saying that _that_ is normal?” he demanded, mortified, pointing at the item.

Diana turned, following his gaze. Her face froze when she realized what he was talking about. Steve felt her go completely still beside him, a faint frown appearing between her brows.

He lowered his hand, no longer giving a damn about the pouch or bag, or whatever it was. Before this moment, she seemed to have been entertained by his social faux pas and utter mystification with this thing or that. But now, Steve was sure that he had said something very wrong, though try as he might, he couldn’t understand what it was.

“Diana?” he asked quietly.

She turned back to him. For a second, there was something akin to utter incomprehension in her eyes, as if she couldn’t quite recognize him. She blinked, and it was gone, her gaze clear and bright, devoid of the anguish he had noticed only moments ago.

“Did I say something…” Steve started, his eyes darting towards the mannequin once more, but she was shaking her head and reaching for the clothes he had left on a bench. He touched her arm. She straightened up and lifted her face to him. Steve felt his mouth go dry. “Diana.”

“No,” she stopped him gently with a shake of her head and a hand on his chest. “No, you didn’t.”

Steve felt his frown deepen. He had never known Diana to lie before—in fact, back when they first met, she had often gone out of her way to speak her every thought, whether he asked for it or not—and while he wasn’t sure she was outright lying now, she certainly wasn’t telling him something.

She spoke again before he could figure out how to ask her about it.

Diana gestured at the clothes he was wearing. “Would you prefer to wear these?” she asked, as she looked over to the German uniform pants and the t-shirt he had been wearing earlier, before her gaze met his again. “Or…?”

“These,” Steve said quickly, relieved. “But what about—?”

There was a spark of humour in her eyes that eased the tightness in his chest that he hadn’t even noticed he was trying to breathe around until then. She plucked the price tags from the sleeve of his shirt and the back pocket of his jeans, folding them in her hand before she reached for the other items they had agreed on.

“I’m sure they will have somewhere for us to discard anything you want to leave behind,” she said. “Unless you’d rather keep them.”

Steve glanced at his pants and the boots that had served him well for the past year and a half. At the overcoat that had, quite possibly, kept him alive the winter before he had ended up on Themyscira, at the belt with the German insignia on the buckle. The uniform jacket and his old shirt were still sitting on top of the washer in her apartment. He wished he’d worn them, so he could throw them out right then as well. 

He looked towards her.

“No,” he said decisively.

Whatever this was, this odd time, he wanted to leave the past where it belonged—in the past.

Arms laden with his old stuff, Steve followed her between the racks and shelves and displays towards the counter at the front. 

It turned out, there was in fact a place for people to throw out anything they didn’t need anymore. Steve wondered how often people did that. Often enough, he figured.

From behind the register, a young clerk watched as Steve stuffed his clothes into a large bin near the corner, her eyes alight with curiosity. Her gaze darted between him and Diana, and he wondered, absently, what it was that she was seeing that got her so interested, but none of the questions he half-expected to be flung at them ever came.

He moved closer to Diana while the clerk folded the clothes piled before her and put them in bags, scanning each tag with a gun-like thing that had some sort of a red beam shooting out of it. He watched as Diana also handed over the tags that she had taken off the clothes and shoes he was now wearing, pointing to his outfit as she explained what the tags were for in perfect French to the sales clerk.

Steve was so fascinated with the gun-thing that he almost missed the moment when Diana pulled out her wallet and then handed the clerk a plastic rectangle with some numbers and her name etched on it. He remembered seeing it before—last night, in the cab.

He frowned a little, wondering if that was the mysterious  _ Euro  _ (did people in the future not use real money anymore?), but when he opened his mouth to ask, he noticed the clerk’s eyes were still darting towards him every now and then. Was it because a  _ woman _ was paying for him? Or because even in the modern-day clothes, he still stood out like a sore thumb and the entire world could see it _? _

Steve closed his mouth, swallowing his question. He would ask it later, when he and Diana were alone and there were no curious eyes and no line waiting behind them for their turn to pay.

The machine that Diana touched with the small rectangle thing beeped, spitting out a long strip of receipt. The clerk put it into one of the bags, thanking Diana, and handed her all their purchases. Steve reached for them, nodding at the girl, more than eager to escape. When he glanced over at Diana, she raised an eyebrow at him, a hint of a smile playing on her lips, but he was heading towards the door already. Before she had a chance to change her mind and force him to try on something else.

If this was anything like her time with Etta at Selfridge’s, he couldn’t really blame her for enjoying getting back at him.

Now that most of their shopping was done, Steve started to pay more attention to the stores they walked by. 

“How do they not go bankrupt?” he inquired, his eyes growing wide in astonishment as they passed a store that only sold ties. “Who needs this many ties?”

And then one that only sold only belts, which made even less sense to him. None of the items inside had a pouch attached to them, but Steve wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

Once or twice, he caught Diana looking at him closely—searching for traces of his earlier  _ episode _ , he figured. But each time he caught her eyes, she merely smiled and led them further into the shopping arcade. 

Their next stop was at a store that only sold underwear. At least there, Diana did allow him to pick out his own, probably because his face had flushed the moment they stepped inside. Which, really… she had seen more than his underwear, for heaven’s sake. That night when they—

Steve took a breath, willing his mind not to go in that direction. 

He cast another quick look her way, only to find her tapping away on her phone. Maybe she was writing an email to her secretary again? When he looked around, half of the people he could see were fiddling with their phones. Diana had told him that one could even play games on them, but, surely, they were not buying things and playing games at the same time?

Steve shook his head before he grabbed two packs of boxers from the shelf closest to the exit, hoping against all hope that he wasn’t messing  _ this _ up. It was just underwear, right? Could he get it wrong? He glanced around the store and at all the different displays, and sighed. While he didn’t really understand the need for the variety of colours, most of it looked normal enough, as far as underpants went.

He added two packs of socks, just to get it over with. The moment he put it all on the counter, Diana appeared by his side. Another transaction involving the small plastic thing ensued. If the guy who worked the cash register—or what passed for a cash register in the twenty-first century—was in any way bothered by a woman paying for men's undergarments, he showed no sign of it. In fact, he looked rather bored, to Steve.

Another bag made its way towards him across the counter. Steve tried not to breathe a sigh of relief too obvious as they stepped out of the store.

“Are we done?” he asked, a little desperate.

If she pushed him into yet another changing room with more clothes to try on, he would likely crawl out of one of those small windows, he was certain.

When his eyes met Diana’s, he saw that hers were alight with humour. She looked down at the bags, checking the contents of each, her lips moving without a sound.

“I suppose this will do, for now,” she said when she looked up. Her gaze drifted past him. “Although…”

“No,” Steve said firmly, shaking his head emphatically for good measure. “Nope. No.”

“I think that coat would look nice on you,” she said simply.

He looked over his shoulder, following her gaze. 

There was indeed a wool coat in the shop window, dark grey, and about as long as Steve’s overcoat used to be. It was only then that it occurred to him that in his haste to get rid of his old clothes, he hadn’t considered the need for something warmer than a pile of shirts. While the shopping arcade was warm, the wind that had greeted them this morning when they had stepped outside had been chilly, raising goose-bumps along his skin as it had snaked beneath his coat. He knew that Diana didn’t feel the cold in quite the same way, but even she was wearing a jacket, albeit a rather thin one.

Steve turned to her to find her watching him with her eyebrow raised.

It was, admittedly, a nice coat, as far as he could tell.

“Last one,” he said with a warning in his voice, and the smile that sprung across her features, so bright and brilliant, nearly made him promise her to never leave this damned place, just so she would keep smiling at him like this.

Ten minutes later, clad in a coat that smelled good and hugged his shoulders closely, he followed Diana outside. He glanced around, realizing they must have exited at the other end, the street before him entirely unfamiliar.

He paused for a moment, a pang of worry flaring in the pit of his stomach, the memory of fear that had shot through his system earlier this morning feeling like a stain he couldn’t rub off on his skin. He could still feel the eyes of dead men staring back at him, emotionless and haunting.

It was disconcerting not to know what other memories were lurking in the back of his mind, waiting for their turn to torment him.

Steve took a breath and tried to remember the feeling of Diana’s hand on his cheek instead, the sound of her voice and the way it had washed over him in that alley. How it had made him feel safer than he had in a very, very long time. 

She hadn’t said anything yet, although Steve knew better than to assume that she had put it behind her.

He didn’t ask her where they were going now, the way he hadn’t all morning, trusting her to know what should be done. Just being around her felt like too much of a miracle for him to care where they were and what they were doing. But when Diana picked a smaller café, quieter and only half full, Steve knew why she had done it, grateful for not having to articulate the prickly sensation that crawled along his skin whenever he felt too crowded.

They picked a table facing the street and pushed the bags under it as they took their seats. The waitress came over with two folded menus and asked if they would like some water. Diana nodded, smiling, and thanked the young woman. Steve glanced around with surreptitious curiosity. There was quiet music playing somewhere above them, and no one seemed to be paying any attention to them.

He felt himself relax. 

He also realized that he was, in fact, ravenous.

He glanced around once more, and then picked up the menu, tripping immediately over  _ Le Brunch _ written above the listed items. He asked Diana about it, watching her hide her smile as she tried to explain to him that a brunch was a meal between breakfast and lunch, usually consisting of a mix of breakfast and lunch foods, favoured by people who liked starting their day later than most. Or something to indulge in over the weekend.

“So,” Steve clarified, “it’s an excuse to eat breakfast food for lunch, basically?”

She bit her lip as the waitress reappeared briefly with a bottle of water and two glasses. 

Diana leaned forward, folding her arms before her. “Sometimes, yes,” she acknowledged when they were alone again.

Steve stared at her, baffled. Why couldn’t they just eat an omelette later in the day? Did they have to invent a whole new word for it? He didn’t say anything though, suspecting that, like with a lot of things coming out of his mouth, he would just make a fool of himself. She didn’t seem to mind his curiosity, even about the smallest things, but there was a point when it was bound to get bothersome, right?

He took a breath and decided that he was perfectly capable of picking something to eat without sounding like the man out of time that he was. And then his brows knitted together once more.

“What the hell is an ac – _ acai _ bowl? _ ” _ he muttered, glancing at Diana over his menu, his jaw going a little slack as she explained. “Mushed fruit with more fruit?” he repeated, dumbfounded. “Why can’t people just eat fruit the normal way?”

“Because sometimes they think of it as a treat,” she replied.

“Have you tried it?” he asked, curious.

“Yes.”

“Is it good?”

“Yes, I think it is.”

Steve nodded, not feeling entirely convinced. It sounded like—like baby food. 

“Back in my day, you could choose between two starters and two main courses,” he grumbled under his breath. “And if you were lucky, there was one selection of dessert. And now—now you have things like…  _ Toast à l'avocat _ ,” he read slowly, and then looked up at her, entirely perplexed.

Diana laughed, the sound of it enough to make feel light on the inside. Enough to make him forget about mushed fruit and men’s underwear made in strange bright colours.

She took pity on him then – Steve suspected he was beginning to look entirely miserable by then – and tried to explain to him what the mysterious toast was. And then ended up looking up a photograph of one on her phone and handing it to him across the table so he could take a look.

“What the hell... Why would anyone want to eat that?” he muttered, staring at the picture of some green mush, aghast. “And pay…” he glanced at the menu, wrinkling his nose, “15 euro for it. What’s a euro, Diana?” he asked, at last, the question that had been sitting in the back of his mind for two hours now.

She leaned back in her chair, her smile softening. “A currency.”

Steve blinked, lowering the menu. “What happened to the franc?”

“It ceased to exist when Europe adopted a single currency for some of its countries.”

“And the American dollar?” he pressed.

She pressed her lips around a smile, amused. “They still use it in America.”

Right. Of course. He should have thought of that. It was no wonder that Diana had dismissed his concerns about paying for things earlier, Steve thought.

He nodded, slowly.

“Okay, so what would that be, in American dollars?” he inquired, pointing at the damned green toast. It didn’t seem like something that people should have to pay for, period.

“About sixteen and a half,” Diana said.

“Dollars?!” he sputtered. “Sixteen and a half  _ dollars _ ?! For this?” He pointed at the menu for emphasis, and then scanned the rest of it, making mental calculations as a strangled sound rose in the back of his throat. “People pay this much for  _ food _ ?”

And then something else dawned on him, the thought having him diving under the table. He rifled through the bags sitting there, looking for the one with—

“Steve.”

He ignored her as he pulled a long strip of a receipt for their first haul and scanned it, feeling his heart sink and his stomach twist uncomfortably when he got to the bottom of it, his fingers twitching around it as panic continued to mount.

“Steve,” Diana said again.

This time, he snapped his head up. “You should not have—We have to return it all immediately!” he said, urgently. Just the thought of her paying this much money for his clothes was making him break into a cold sweat. What was she thinking? He glanced around, trying to remember which direction they had come from.

Should have been paying more attention…

He looked down at himself, cursing quietly under his breath when he realized that they would have to keep at least the shirt and pants he was wearing, and the shoes, too, since he had thrown out his old ones. But the coat—He tried to recall the cost of it, not sure if Diana had kept the receipt for it, but it had to be more than he used to make in a year, as a Captain in the American army, assigned to foreign duty.

_ Shit. _

He couldn’t even imagine the amount of money she had just wasted—

“Steve,” she said once more.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he hissed, leaning closer to her, aware that people at the table closest to them were now paying attention but not giving a damn. If they were willing to pay sixteen and a half dollars for a piece of bread with green mush, they were insane anyway.

“It’s not expensive,” she said calmly, shaking her head.

“Not expensive?!” He thrust the receipt at her. “I will  _ never _ be able to pay you back,” he added.

She pressed her lips together, shaking her head a little, and he scowled at her smile.

“Come on,” Steve urged her. 

He made a move to stand up and grab the bags, but Diana caught his hands in hers, pressing them together and holding them on the table between them. The warmth of her touch made everything inside of him come to a complete standstill, his heart skipping a beat when their eyes met. An unsteady breath stuttered out of his chest and he swallowed hard. There was more than one table looking at them now, but he didn’t care.

“A century is a long time, Steve,” Diana said after a moment, her voice low. “This world is not what it used to be. Things changed.”

Like cars, and clothes, and food, and—

Steve glanced around and noticed a couple sitting at a table in the corner, close together. Cups of coffee and a plate of pastries before them, but neither of them seemed to care. They were barely a few inches apart, talking quietly, all soft smiles. Every now and then, they would lean forward, their lips meeting in tender kisses. 

Steve jerked his gaze away, the back of his neck growing hot. So, some societal norms had apparently changed as well. He wondered what would happen if he leaned across the table and kissed Diana, right there, in the middle of a café.

He pushed the mental image away, willing himself to focus on figuring out what else he was going to need to adjust to. Maybe the sounds that cars made. And the money that people used. Suddenly, the clothes that he was starting to grow accustomed to were too tight and too stiff and too foreign on him, making him wish he had kept the uniform pants and his old boots that had once carried him across half of Europe.

Steve looked down at their joined hands, mesmerized momentarily by Diana’s thumbs running soothingly over his knuckles. Something that managed to make everything inside of him go quiet. He hadn’t even noticed how badly his hands were shaking until she was there to steady them.

He took a slow breath, willing his heartbeat to even out, feeling the flush of embarrassment rise up his cheeks for perhaps the ten-millionth time in the past few hours.

“You don’t need to pay me back,” Diana told him seriously. He lifted his gaze to hers. “Not for anything. And none of this is as expensive as it may seem to you.”

Steve didn’t let go of her hands—if it was up to him, he would never let go—but his gaze darted towards their menus still lying near their glasses of water.

“Ten dollars for a cup of coffee is not expensive?” he asked dryly.

That was a lot of money. That was, if memory served him right, almost as much as his apartment cost him when he lived in London. He wondered how much more money people were making these days. And how much Diana was getting paid at the Louvre. He swallowed the question though, sensing that it was not a polite thing to ask. Especially in public. Even if, from what he could tell, all the other patrons of the café had gone back to minding their own business.

Maybe he could ask her later, when they were alone.

Diana let out a small laugh, shaking her head at him. “I suppose you could find a better deal than that,” she admitted.

He let out a slow breath. It made sense, now that he had a chance to consider it. But it still felt overwhelming in a way he never knew existed, his mind reeling from the enormity of what was happening to him. Of what  _ had _ happened. Last night, he had been scared of falling asleep in Diana’s bed and waking up in the blazing inferno that had taken his life a century ago. Now, he was even more afraid of her figuring out that he was not worth the trouble.

The thought made his blood run cold, the mere idea of facing this new world without her filling him with dread beyond anything he had ever experienced.

Steve looked up at her, half expecting her expression to be patronizing. But her gaze was kind and compassionate and understanding, reminding him suddenly that she had had to go through everything that he was dealing with now. Without him. A jolt of guilt careened through his chest, leaving a scorching trail of ash in its wake. He hoped she hadn’t been completely alone. And he hoped that people had been kind to her. God help him, she had never deserved anything less.

She let go of his hands when the waitress came over to ask if they were ready to order. Steve gave their menus another panicked look, and Diana took pity on him and ordered for both of them. A cup of tea for her, and a black coffee for him, and something that he hoped wasn’t green mush or pureed fruit. Though, frankly, he hadn’t bothered to pay attention to that.

For a few minutes, they sat in companionable silence. Steve wanted to reach for her hand again, but he didn’t. He simply looked at her instead, and she let him.

“You want to ask, about earlier,” he said quietly after their drinks had arrived.

She didn’t seem surprised by his comment. “Not if you don’t want to talk about it,” she said. 

He looked up at her in surprise. He never expected to be given a choice.

He had thought about that day and had dreamed about it for years, but he had never spoken about it, the violence of it sitting inside of him like a ball of barbed wire, all sharp edges and poison. There were many things he had done in the two years since he had been sent to Europe that he was so ashamed of that he could barely stand to think of them. He wondered if Diana would think of him less if she knew—if she knew it all. If she would be disgusted and repulsed by him if he told her the whole truth.

Steve dropped his eyes to the coffee sitting before him. He picked up a spoon and stirred it aimlessly even though he preferred it black and unsweetened.

There really was nothing but goodness in her. He thought back to her outright bafflement over the ways of war, and how insulted she had been by the inaction of his superiors and Steve’s own adamant desire to follow the rules, at the time. The memory of her face when he had found her on the outskirts of Veld, anguished and devastated, flared up before his mind’s eye.

She would hate him, he knew, if she found out how many Velds he had caused.

Another jolt of shame flared up in his stomach.

“I have them too, you know,” Diana said, after another long moment of silence.

Steve looked up to find her watching him, her hands curled around her cup of tea and her gaze tender. More tender than he deserved, for sure. 

“Have what?” he asked, warily.

“Ghosts.”

He opened his mouth, and then closed it again when nothing came out, his mind suddenly blank. The brief moment of relief that her words had brought was squashed almost immediately by another pang of guilt, making him ache all the way down to his bones.

He had never meant for any of it to end like this. When he had brought her into his world, it had never been his intention to leave her behind to fend for herself. He wondered what it was that haunted her. Was it Veld? Or him dying? Or something that had happened after he was gone? He wondered if she had ever lain awake at night, afraid to close her eyes, feeling safer awake than asleep, but even the mere idea of that was making his heart splinter and bleed.

Steve pushed the thoughts away before they shattered everything inside of him, but one thing remained true whether he liked it or not — even if her heartache wasn’t about him, he was to blame for it.

“Really?” he asked quietly, uncertain if he wanted to tell her about that first man he had killed. And the half a dozen others, that night alone.

“Really,” Diana murmured. “War leaves everyone scarred, human or divine.”

Steve didn’t like that. Someone like her, someone who was made of light, was not meant to carry a burden like the one that was sitting on his chest like a stone. Her life was supposed to be filled with love and laughter and happiness. He had suspected that it hadn’t always been idyllic, but hearing Diana confirm it felt like a punch to his stomach, all the same.

“I dream of them sometimes,” she added. “Of everyone who I failed to save.”

Was he one of those people?

He watched a shadow pass across her features, convinced that he had to be, at least at some point. 

The thought was entirely intolerable, slicing through him like a hot knife and making his breath catch. The café where they were was bright and warm and welcoming, but he was suddenly cold as though his blood had turned to ice. He didn’t know if she had loved him, then, though he wanted to believe that she had even if she never got a chance to say it. But even if she hadn’t, he still wanted to be a fond memory, not a dark shadow haunting her in her wake.

“I’m sorry,” Steve blurted out. “I’m sorry I—I never wanted to leave you, Diana.”

She glanced up at him in surprise. “Steve…”

“I wanted to be with you,” he forged on before he lost his nerve, his thoughts a jumbled mess in his head and the words he was searching for slipping right out of his reach. He tried to remember everything he had told her when they had laid tangled in sheets and wrapped around each other, whispering things that were only meant to be said quietly and in the dark, to someone one cared deeply for. Promises that he had fully intended to keep, only to break each and every single one of them, along with her heart. Probably. “After it was over, after the war. I never meant to—it was not meant to end the way it did.”

“I wanted to be with you, too,” she whispered.

Steve swallowed, wishing they were having this conversation elsewhere, feeling exposed with all the strangers around them. Yet, it felt imperative to not stop now. 

“My first mission,” he said, holding on to whatever was left of his courage with all his might and knowing that if he didn’t say something then, he likely never would. “My plane was hit right in the middle of enemy territory. They were shooting at me and at each other, and—” he cut off abruptly, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper, his throat so tight he could barely make a sound.

He looked down, fidgeting with his spoon, his brow furrowed and the echo of artillery fire lingering so deep in his mind he knew he would never be able to claw it out. He thought back to the sound from this morning that had pushed him back to that dark, terrifying moment, and his heart skipped a beat once more, a prickly sensation crawling along his skin. Earlier, he had wondered if Diana perceived time differently because she had an endless stretch of if before her. Now, he wondered how long he would need to put that day behind him.

He felt Diana’s hand cover his and looked up. Her eyes were searching his, her expression full of the same grief that Steve could feel coursing through his bloodstream.

He turned his hand, curling his fingers around her and brushing his thumb across her palm.

Their food arrived before he could say anything else, and even though part of him found the interruption frustrating, another part—a bigger one, if he was honest with himself—was grateful for it.

“Let’s eat, yes?” Diana offered, and Steve found himself nodding. 

He eyed his plate with suspicion, relieved to find none of the green stuff that she had shown him in the photo or anything else odd-looking. Just an omelette with mushrooms and cheese and a piece of baguette. When he checked Diana’s plate, curious, he saw a variation of what he had, and the normalcy of it made the tight knot of anxiety in his stomach ease.

He hadn’t told her everything, and he knew he would need to, eventually. She deserved to know — for his sake or her own Steve wasn’t quite sure, but she deserved to know. But she didn’t ask for more even after the waitress left, seemingly satisfied with his half-story for now, and he didn’t know how to bring it up again, so he chose to tuck into his food instead. Food that turned out to be pretty damn good.

At some point during their meal, Diana’s phone let out a high-pitched chime. She pulled it out of the back pocket of her jacket, eyes scanning over the screen, as she bit her lip around a smile.

“What is it?” Steve asked around a mouthful of eggs, unable to help himself. 

Diana lifted her gaze to his. “What’s what?”

“You’re smiling.”

Pressing her lips together, she shook her head and then handed her phone to him. Steve put his fork down and took it gingerly, worried suddenly that a thing this small and delicate could be broken quite easily as well.

On the screen, he saw an image split in half — one half showing a guy in a black mask with pointy ears that looked like some sort of bat costume, his jaw square and the corners of his mouth turned downwards in a displeased scowl. The other half was a picture of a cat whose mouth was puckered with displeasure in a similar manner. Above the picture, was a name:  _ Barry Allen _ ; beneath it, one line of text:  _ grumpy bat _ .

Steve glanced back at Diana. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s called a meme.”

“A meme?”

“It’s… ah, a joke that most people understand,” Diana explained. “The cat on the left is called Grumpy Cat because of its unusual features.”

“And the guy on the right is a Grumpy Bat because he is wearing a bat mask and looks grumpy?” Steve deduced. Diana nodded, amused. “And this is supposed to be funny?”

“I think it’s a little mean,” she acknowledged.

“Who is Barry Allen?”

“A friend of mine.” Diana paused, considering something. “I think you’d like him.”

“Is he the guy in the mask?”

“No, that’s another mutual friend of ours. Who would not find the comparison flattering, if I have to take a guess. Which is partly why, I suppose, Barry has found it entertaining.”

Steve felt his lips twitch a little as he handed her phone back to her. “Well, the resemblance is uncanny,” he admitted, and the smile that Diana flashed at him was so dazzling it made his heart stutter in his chest. “You know someone who wears a bat mask?” he asked then, intrigued.

“I know a lot of people,” she responded vaguely, and he lifted his eyebrows at her. “It’s a long story.”

Steve chuckled but didn’t press. He was sure that she had a lot of long stories, what with a hundred years in his world under her belt.

He picked up his fork again. “Speaking of long stories,” he started. “How did you end up in Paris? And working at the Louvre, of all places?”

Diana pushed her plate aside and picked up her tea. “You sound surprised,” she commented, looking at him over the rim of her cup. 

“No, not surprised, more—” he faltered, and when he managed to identify the feeling, it all but exploded in his chest in brilliant colours, so fierce he could barely breathe around it for a moment or two: “Proud.” Not that he had any right to be proud of something that he was no part of. “It suits you,” he added, softly.

She put the cup down, her fingers running over the handle absently.

“I worked at the British Museum for a while, in the ’60s,” she said after a moment. “A friend of Etta’s recommended me even though I didn’t have any official training, at that point. They needed someone to translate some texts.”

“And knowing hundreds of languages came in handy,” Steve offered.

She smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Yes,” she agreed. “I enjoyed it more than I expected I would. I stayed with them for as long as I could without raising suspicions about…” She glanced down at herself.

He blinked at her, the realization dawning on him quickly. In all of his musings about immortality, not once had he considered the burden of having to hide it. Of course, she could not stay there for too long, not without someone noticing that she was not ageing.

“Right,” he said, feeling foolish, and cleared his throat. “What happened then?”

“I collaborated with the Smithsonian briefly, in the ‘80s—”

“Wait,” Steve interjected. “You lived in America?”

Of all the things that he had learned in the past sixteen or so hours, this one, so far, was the biggest surprise.

“For a while.” Diana’s gaze caught on his and she held it. “You told me I should visit, remember?”

He did remember.

The fire had almost died in the hearth and the night outside the inn was getting thick and quiet. Somewhere in out of the other rooms, he had been able to hear Charlie snoring. Diana’s body had been tucked into his, curve for curve, and he had known that they both needed to go to sleep and get some rest, but he hadn’t wanted to stop talking to her or touching her or making her laugh. And that was when he had asked her if she would like to come to America with him, after the war was over. (Back when he had still harboured some hope for seeing the end of it.)

Steve felt his face flush, the memory bright and intense and so vivid he could all but smell the woodsmoke and feel the smoothness of the skin beneath his fingertips. Of course, for him, the memory still only felt only a few days old, not 100 years.

He cleared his throat and busied himself with folding and unfolding his napkin, his blood roaring in his ears.

“Did you like it?” he asked, at last.

And there it was again, that odd expression on Diana’s face. Like she wanted to say something. Something important.

But she merely nodded. “I did.”

“Why did you leave?” he inquired, wondering if that also was a long story, and if it was a good one.

Just as Diana was about to reply, the waitress reappeared, this time with a small leather folder that she left between them before she started clearing the plates.

_ “Merci,” _ Diana said.

Steve watched her fish the familiar plastic thing from her wallet and slide it into the folder, opening it long enough for him to see that it was their bill. Long enough for him to get a glimpse of the grand total at the bottom as well.

He shook his head to himself in quiet bewilderment. A hundred years ago, he would have had to work for two and a half months to have that kind of money. To think that  _ brunch _ could cost so much—

He turned to Diana to ask her again if it was okay. She had told him that all of it—the food and the clothes she had bought him—cost reasonably, and Steve was sure that she would not say that just to placate him. He had never known her to be a liar. But Diana was not paying attention to him, or the waitress that still lingered near their table. She was looking out the window, her eyes sharp and her body stiff and completely still.

Steve turned to follow her gaze in time to see three men pile out of a car parked near the curb on the other side of the street and head towards the entrance to a jewellery store. There was nothing particularly remarkable about them, at first glance, but for whatever reason, watching them walk inside, one after another, made his skin crawl. It took him a moment to realize that one of them had a gun, tucked into the waistband of his pants, and even someone as clueless as him knew that it probably meant trouble.

Diana seemed to have drawn the same conclusion at the exact same moment. He heard her subtle intake of breath.

“Stay here,” she said without looking Steve’s way. And then she was rising from the table. And then she was gone.

Steve waited for a heartbeat, and then another one, his eyes scanning over the crowd outside but there was no sign of her. The tension inside of him kept building and building and building until he could barely stand it.

That was when someone fired a gun—a real one, he suspected, not a car backfiring this time. His heart stuttered in his chest and dropped into his stomach, cold sweat breaking along his skin. Someone screamed outside, although he couldn’t tell if it was in pain or in panic. More shots were fired in quick succession, and his mind went spiralling into a black abyss.

He took a breath and tried to stay alert, tried not to slip into the past.

A loud gasp right near him gave him a start. Steve snapped his head up to find their waitress still standing next to him, her hand pressed to her mouth and her eye wide and horrified.

“Keep an eye on these, okay?” he muttered, jerking his chin towards the bags sitting under their table.

And then he leaped out of his chair and started running. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know, the previous cliffhanger ended up being not what you probably expected, subversion of expectations and all, but this one is the real deal, I promise! Some badass action and teamwork and all in the next chapter and... generally a lot of goodies in the next chapter :) I hope you'll stay around for that!
> 
> As always, comments and thoughts are highly appreciated! On that note, what do you think of Snyder's cut coming out? I have to admit, I'm quite excited. Cautiously so, but still. 
> 
> Also, how are you all holding up? My "neck of the woods" is in lockdown again, starting tomorrow. Hope it won't last too long, but you never know. Maybe I'll even manage to do some more editing... or will I? Hm... Anyway, I hope you guys are being as safe as you can be. Please take care! 
> 
> And I'll see you soon :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, it's nice to be done with A Road Paved in Gold and working on this story full time. Just wanted to thank you all again for the incredible support that you continue showing to this fic, and all of my other works. Without you, I won't still be here.
> 
> I am currently sorting out the ending of this fic and boy oh boy, is it going to be wild. But... all in due time! This chapter has a little bit of everything :) I'm quite excited to share it and I think you'll enjoy it! Also, I expanded the character tags. There might be another one or two I'll add later but those should be enough for now. Don't be alarmed though, this story centers primarily around Steve and Diana :) 
> 
> Have fun!

There were four of them. The fourth one must have come from the back or from the side alley, because Steve didn’t remember seeing him go in. However, more importantly, they all had guns.

Crouching near the tinted window, Steve craned his neck, careful to stay out of their line of sight. His heart was pounding and his body was as tense as a coiled spring. Around him, people were scurrying away from danger; in the distance, he could hear a wail of sirens. Police, he hoped, but it sounded so far away it barely felt real.

Inside the store, he could see an older man standing behind the counter, looking pale. His hands were raised and trembling slightly. One of the men had a gun pointed at him and was saying something to him in a quick, demanding voice, his words muffled by the thick glass and made even less distinguishable because he was speaking so fast.

It was then that Steve noticed drops of blood on the tiled floor. His eyes followed them, a trail of crimson on white, to a young man sitting with his back against a wall, clutching at his shoulder and breathing heavily. He wore a vest with a shield embroidered on it and a holster around his hips, currently empty. Steve thought of the men who had approached him and Diana at the museum the night before, realizing that the guy before him had to be some kind of security, outnumbered and overpowered by the other four. One of the bullets they had fired must have hit him.

Another one, it seemed, had hit a glass display, shattering the front pane. Steve could hear the glass crunching beneath the men’s feet every time they moved.

Two of them were standing with their weapons pointed at the owner and the security guard while the other two were shoving rings and bracelets and necklaces into bags, sweeping them from their displays.

Steve almost missed a flicker of gold shooting across the store, but barely a moment later one of the men was suddenly flying through the air, Diana’s Lasso wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms to his sides. His expression going comically from surprise and confusion to frustration to brief panic before his whole body slammed against a wall and he slid down in a heap. The bag that he was holding fell to his feet, spilling its contents over the floor.

The older man backed away from the counter and then, as soon as the attention of both armed men was on Diana, ducked behind it for good measure.

Diana whipped her head around, her focus going immediately to the men who had raised their guns and were shooting at her in quick succession, the bullets ricocheting off her gauntlets as her lips pressed together into a tight, displeased line. 

Unbidden, Steve’s mind jumped back to that day in France and peeking out of muddy trenches and the look of fierce determination on Diana’s face as she stepped out onto No Man’s Land. He had never, ever, seen anything quite as magnificent. And maybe it was seeing Diana in her armour, fighting to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, and maybe she was going to have this exact effect on him for as long as he lived, but he was helpless against the surge of pride blossoming in his chest. It took root in his heart, twining around his rib cage before spreading outwards to the tips of his fingers and his toes until his entire body was pulsing with it.

Mesmerized, Steve stared at her, unable to look away, half-forgetting momentarily why he was there and what was going on. His eyes followed the lithe movements of her body, the golden parts of her armour glowing in the sun falling through the large window of the storefront. So much so that he almost missed the moment when she lunged forward, sliding between the two men and snatching the guns from them.

Steve thought of her ramming her shield into the German bazookas and snapping their rifles in half as they were making their way towards Veld as he watched her clench her fists, the metal of the guns snapping without resistance. She opened her palms and the mangled weapons fell to the floor. One of the men was now backing away from her, but the second one bared his teeth and lunged at her, enraged and, by the looks of it, determined not to give up without a fight.

And that was when the last of them, the man who had been gathering the jewellery earlier, decided to make a run for it.

With Diana’s back turned on him and her attention focused on his other two companions, the man bolted out the door and directly past Steve. A bag of loot still clutched tightly in his hand, he sprinted down the street just as two police cars rounded the corner from the other direction.

Steve didn’t think. He twisted away from the window, leaving Diana to deal with the other three robbers and started after the man who was veering around the onlookers who were too slow to step aside. Someone shouted behind them in French, ordering them to stop.

He should have waited for the police, Steve thought. Or Diana. He definitely should have waited for Diana. But the thought of the labyrinth of narrow streets and back alleys where it would be so easy to disappear never to be seen again had him surging forward, frustrated at all the people who still didn’t have the sense to move out of the way. Or, at least, to trip the man ahead of him, saving him some trouble. 

The man he was following was undoubtedly in good shape. Or scared enough to push himself to keep going. But, unlike Steve who had spent the past couple of years running for his life, he was not someone used to teetering on the edge of the knife and treating his every breath like it was the last one. And he was getting winded, quickly.

Steve lunged forward when he was close enough, slamming hard into the man and sending them both down. The robber let out a howl of pain followed by a string of curses when his face smacked into the asphalt, rolling immediately onto his side to shake Steve off. A jolt of pain shot through Steve’s bad shoulder, white-hot and blinding for a moment, leaving him hissing and disoriented long enough for the guy to wiggle around and punch him in the jaw. The man’s nose was broken, blood gushing out of it. He was still holding the bag of stolen goods, his knuckles scraped and bleeding. 

Steve blinked, his ears ringing, as he tried to gather his bearings. The man clenched his teeth, his lip split and bleeding, and struck again with rage and precision. This time, however, Steve was fast enough to grab his fist. That seemed to anger the man even more. He wrestled his hand from Steve’s hold, aiming for another strike.

But it didn’t come.

Instead, he was yanked up and away. Surprised, Steve blinked and looked up to find Diana standing over him, her hand curled over the collar of the man's shirt as she held him immobile while he continued to spit out threats. Behind her, two police officers were running towards them, the alley too narrow for their car to pass.

“Got him,” Steve said, smiling for good measure and earning an eye roll from her. 

He scrambled up to his feet, reeling a little from the punch that seemed to have knocked his brain around the inside of his skull a little. A wave of nausea rolled in his stomach and he swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, praying he was not going to lose his lunch— _brunch_ —right there.

Steve took a slow breath, the dizziness and discomfort fading away slowly. 

When he opened his eyes, the police were walking the man away, his hands handcuffed behind his back. One of the officers was holding the bag of stolen jewelry. Diana was watching them, her eyes narrowed, but she turned back to Steve almost as soon as his gaze shifted to her.

“Are you alright?” she asked, moving closer to him.

And maybe it was the fact that he had just had his head slammed against the asphalt, or maybe it was seeing her in her armour which never failed to leave him feeling a little dazed, but it took Steve a moment to register her words. And another one—to nod, slowly.

“Yeah,” he said, absently. “Yeah, I’m—”

He cut off when he noticed her frown, two faint lines creasing the skin between her brows. Steve glanced down and saw a spatter of blood across the pale blue cotton of his shirt, a few specs having landed on his new coat.

“It’s not mine,” he said quickly and gestured towards the end of the alley where the captured man was being loaded into the back of a police car, its red and blue lights flashing. “I—I, uh, broke his nose. I think.”

The frown remained intact, her eyes now searching his face, making Steve wonder what it was that she was seeing that made her lips press together into a thin line.

“I’m fine, I swear,” he said, quietly, leaning a little towards her.

Immediately, she lifted her hand, brushing his hair back from his face. His cheekbone was starting to ache, the uncomfortable, hot feeling of something pulsing beneath his bone. The impulse to draw away from her touch was almost overpowering. He turned his face into her palm instead, his gaze holding hers.

“I’m fine, Diana,” he repeated, quietly, his breath catching at the sight of the haunted panic pooling behind her eyes.

His shoulder was throbbing and he wondered how badly he had messed it up when that guy slammed him into a sidewalk before it even had a chance to heal. Now that the adrenaline rush was starting to ebb, he also realized that his ribs weren’t feeling all that hot either. He was not going to mention that to her though, he decided. Not when she looked so concerned already.

“Steve.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He glanced down again, trying not to think past the uncomfortable heaviness in the back of his skull and the ringing in his ears. “I think I ruined this shirt. I hope they’ll charge him for that, as well.” 

She didn’t smile, his attempt to lighten up the mood falling completely flat. Steve didn’t like it. And he didn’t like the faraway look in her eyes and the shadow of anguish that chased across her features, either.

“Diana,” he called, ducking his head closer to hers. She blinked, her gaze clearing. Steve watched her take a breath and regain her bearings. He wondered where she’d gone, in that instant, and whether he actually wanted to know the answer to that question.

And then his brows knitted together quizzically. “Have you been wearing this underneath… everything? The entire time?” he wondered quietly, taking in her armour. He shook his head before she could say anything. “You know what? Never mind.” 

It was also then that he noticed that they were not completely alone. What he had mistaken for merely a back alley was actually a narrow street, with windows facing it and people peeking through them now, eyes wide. _Wonder Woman,_ he heard someone gasp in awe, and he looked up involuntarily to see a young boy no older than seven peering down at them, his mouth hanging open.

The corners of Steve’s mouth twitched a little. He nodded to the child, whose eyes grew as wide as saucers.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Diana said softly, her thumb brushing along his cheekbone.

Steve cleared his throat. “I think you need to…” his gaze darted towards the alley exit and the flashing light of a police car. She followed his gaze, a slight frown making a reappearance. “Go. Deal with it,” he said before she could argue. “I’ll meet you back at the café.”

She regarded him skeptically. “Will you be able to find it?” she asked.

He arched a pointed eyebrow at her. “I’m a spy. We’re adept at finding our way around places.”

She smiled at that. A real one, that went all the way to her eyes and sent his heart into overdrive.

“I know you can find your way in and out of trouble, yes,” she conceded. “But what about avoiding it?”

Steve chuckled at that, unable to help it even if it hurt a little to smile. “Give me some credit.”

She moved closer to him then, her hand dropping from his face to fall to the lapel of his coat. (Steve hoped he hadn’t messed it up too badly when he fell to the ground, wincing inwardly at the idea of that.) For a moment, she merely stood there, fiddling with his collar. He didn’t say anything, and didn’t move away, choosing to merely watch her hands and the glint of her gauntlet in the sunlight.

When she lifted her eyes to his, he was certain that she was going to kiss him. Right there, with a bunch of random strangers watching their every move. His gaze dropped to her mouth, effectively wiping away his awareness of any discomfort in his body.

But then another moment passed, and another one. And, at last, Diana squared her shoulders, leaning away from him and breaking whatever spell had captured them for that moment.

“I’ll find you if you get lost,” she said quietly, and truth be told, Steve wasn’t sure if they were still talking about him making his way back to the café or something else entirely.

* * *

“I asked you to wait for me.”

“What was I supposed to do, Diana? Just sit there while you—"

“Yes.”

“No.”

She arched a pointed eyebrow at him, and Steve clamped his mouth shut, pressing his lips together stubbornly.

He was perched on a tall stool in Diana’s kitchen where they had ended up eventually—after Diana had explained to the police what had happened; after they had tried to question Steve but she had diverted their attention elsewhere, quite artfully so; after he had made it back to the café only to find her already waiting for him, dressed once again in her regular clothes, their bags piled up under the table exactly where he’d left them. The first aid kit was sitting on the counter between them while she worked on getting his scrapes and cuts cleaned up and disinfected after he had adamantly refused to go to a hospital. (“Who goes to a hospital with a split lip?” he had argued.) 

“That other guy would've gotten away,” Steve pointed out.

Diana pressed a piece of cotton doused with antiseptic to his cheekbone. He hissed through his teeth and scowled at her, but she held his chin in a firm grip, seemingly unsympathetic to his discomfort.

Should have known there was a catch to letting her treat him instead of a doctor, Steve thought sullenly. She’d had him take off the bloodied shirt, too. There had to be some sort of irony to him sitting shirtless in her kitchen for the second time in as many days, even though he hadn’t quite figured out what it entailed, exactly.

“He wouldn’t have,” Diana said evenly. “Don’t move.”

_Couldn’t if I wanted to._

“Or someone could’ve gotten hurt,” he pressed on as she lowered her hand and examined her work.

Her gaze met his. “Someone _did_ get hurt.”

“It’s nothing,” Steve argued for what felt like the thousandth time. His eyes darted towards the bag of frozen peas wrapped in a towel that he was holding against his shoulder that had swelled and started to throb uncomfortably by the time they had walked through the door. “And this injury is old,” he insisted. 

Diana hummed noncommittally, even though he could see her fighting a smile, or maybe an exasperated roll of her eyes—he wasn’t quite sure. It made his heart flutter behind his ribs, all the same. Which made his stomach twist a little, in a good way.

“It’s inflamed now,” she reminded him as she started to put the bottles and tubes and the pack of cotton balls back in the first aid kit. 

“You couldn’t have been in two places at once.”

She went still, and Steve fell silent when he caught on, belatedly, to what he had said.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Neither of them moved. He watched Diana stare down at the grey bag, her hands frozen on a zipped, her brows pulled together and her jaw set tautly.

That was how they’d gotten here in the first place, wasn’t it? She couldn’t have defeated Ares and stopped the plane, back in 1918. And he couldn’t have stayed back and let innocent people die, not even if he had really, truly, desperately wanted to live to see another day. But it hurt. Steve could see that it hurt her, the impossible choice that had changed everything, and he was suddenly ashamed for bringing it up so casually, so callously.

Still not looking at him, Diana stepped away, but he darted his hand out to curl his fingers around her wrist.

“Wait, please,” he said quietly, her pulse a rapid thrum beneath his fingertips.

He tugged her back to him, and she let him, not trying to pull out of his grasp even though they both knew that he was not strong enough to hold her if she didn’t want it. She still wasn’t looking at him though, her gaze cast aside and her lips pressed together.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. “I didn’t mean to…”

He swallowed and tried to imagine what it had been like for her to see that blood on his shirt. He couldn’t. Try as he might, he never had and likely never would understand it. He still feared for her, though he knew that she was near indestructible. He still felt responsible for her because he had been the one to bring her into his world even though she had now lived in it longer than he had. But she couldn’t get hurt the way he could, and he could never lose her the way she’d lost him. Steve had always known that they were different, but it had never felt quite like a gaping void until that moment.

He was certain she could feel it, too. 

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said, running his thumb over the inside of her wrist.

Diana looked up. “I know,” she whispered, her gaze softening as it moved over his face.

On impulse, he lifted his good hand and brushed back a strand of hair that had escaped her loose ponytail and fell across her cheek. He drew back before he had a chance to go even further and pull her hair band off until her hair was falling down her shoulders. He’d want to touch it then, bury his fingers in it the way he had before, that night when they—

“I would never do anything to hurt you,” he went on, trying to stay focused. 

“I know, Steve.”

“And I’m sure your washing machine can—can fix the shirt,” he added, just in case she was upset about that as well.

This time, he could see the making of a smile working its way to her face.

“I can buy you a new shirt.”

He nodded, slowly. And then felt the corner of his mouth twitch a little.

“They call you _Wonder Woman_.”

Diana pressed her lips together. He could see her fighting back a snort.

“The media wanted something catchy.”

“I’m sure that’s all there is to it,” Steve deadpanned. “And that it’s got nothing to do with the fact that you can flip tanks and punch your fist through brick walls.”

“I haven’t done that in a while,” she noted, amused. 

“How long have they been calling you that?”

“A while.”

“Like, a couple of months?” he pressed on.

“Forty years, give or take.”

Steve felt his jaw drop. He blinked, and Diana laughed.

“I guess it caught on,” he cleared his throat, feeling the tops of his cheeks grow hot. 

“I suppose it did,” she murmured.

If he’d forgotten for a moment or two that he was sitting half-naked before her or that she was standing so close he could smell that fruity shampoo on her, he remembered it now, suddenly very aware of it with every cell of his body. His hand was still curled around her wrist. She’d never made an attempt to pull out of his grasp, and Steve wasn’t sure he wanted to let go just yet, either. He just wanted to look at her, and she let him.

His eyes moved over her features, taking her in—the warmth of her gaze and the gentle bow of her lips that he remembered the taste of so vividly and her high cheekbones that had reminded him of statues of gods long before he had learned she was one. Unbidden, his mind went back to the moment on the beach when he had opened his eyes and found her hovering over him, bathed in sunlight, droplets of water clinging to her skin.

He was certain now that he had loved her then, even if he didn’t know it yet. And loved her more in the throne room, bound by the Lasso. And more still in the days that had followed. And then he was gone, not even ashes of him left, and he had loved her anyway. And that he would continue to love her thousands of years after his bones turned to dust.

She should have seemed different to him, Steve thought. After all this time. And maybe she was, in a way. She had that fancy mobile phone now (and try as he might, he could not quite figure out why it had to be a phone and a photo camera, and a hundred other things at the same time), and she wore pants (that looked very good on her), and there was a reservation to her that he could not recall from their brief time together. But her smile was the same. Earlier today, she hadn’t hesitated before rushing off to help someone who had needed it. And then afterwards, when they’d come back to get their bags, she had found words of comfort for the waitress who’d been quite distraught over the entire ordeal.

Steve had no doubt that she had changed. Changed in ways that he might not see on the surface, not yet. But he also knew that at the core, even centuries from now, she would still be the Diana he had met in 1918, no matter what she wore or how she spoke or where she lived.

The pause stretched between them as the old clock on the wall continued to tick the seconds away. 

“Do you remember No Man’s Land?” Steve asked eventually.

Diana gazed at him in surprise. “Of course.”

He felt the corners of his mouth tug upwards. “Well, I mean, it’s been a hundred years.” 

She smiled, shaking her head a little. “I remember, Steve.”

“It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, his voice earnest. He turned her wrist in his hand, tracing his thumb over her pulse point. “Today, when you crushed those guns in your hands? That’s a close second.”

Diana bit her lip around a smile and rolled her eyes a little. “Flatterer.”

He felt the tension drain out of her, the tight coil of _something_ letting loose.

“It’s not flattery if it’s true,” he pointed out.

“You’re good at changing the subject, I’ve got to give you that.” She smoothed her palm over his shoulder. “Does it hurt?”

“Only when I move it,” he admitted and rolled it, wincing when the joint protested it. “I was not trying to make it worse, you know.”

She hummed noncommittally. “Were you trying to make it better?”

Steve huffed. “I wanted to help.”

She sighed, and he was certain that there was a touch of exasperation to it, too. Was it odd that he loved even her exasperation?

Diana brushed his hair back from his forehead, gently tilting his head slightly to the side to survey what he was certain would turn into a black eye by morning. She was biting her lip again, even though Steve could tell it had nothing to do with his face.

“What?” he asked, a little alarmed.

When their eyes met, she sighed again. “I have to take care of something.”

Steve frowned. “You’re leaving?”

“Only for a day. Two, at most.”

He felt his brows knit closer together, his frown deepening. He considered the idea. Surely, he could survive just fine on his own for a day or two, or even longer, if he had to. He had lived through most of the war, and the future was—well, it was not as bad, obviously. But everything that he knew about this world was tied to Diana, and even though he had never expected her to babysit him forever, the thought of her going away so soon was unbearable.

“Does it have anything to do with…” he trailed off and gestured at himself.

“Maybe.”

Steve nodded, not sure how he felt about it.

“Can I come with you?”

Diana hesitated.

“I’d rather you wait here,” she said gently.

He opened his mouth to argue, but stopped himself when he caught the look on her face. A memory sprung to his mind, of the wind tugging at his coat and swallowing his words and Diana’s pleading voice, _Whatever it is, I can do it. Let me do it._ The raw panic in her eyes earlier when she had seen the blood on his shirt and thought he had been injured. The way her voice had caught in her throat when she’d asked if he was hurt.

“Okay,” Steve said, before he could change his mind.

He wasn’t crazy about the idea of staying behind, especially on something that could have something to do with him and this whole… revival thing. But he would also be happy to walk away from any and all battles for good if it meant that she would never look so grief-stricken because of him.

Diana looked relieved, the small smile making its return as she trailed her fingertips over the line of his jaw. “Yes?”

He felt his heartbeat stutter. He let go of her wrist and brushed his thumb over her chin, his eyes searching hers. “If you want me to stay here, I’ll be here.”

“Yes, I do.”

He nodded again, feeling like his neck was about to come unhinged and, oddly, not giving a damn about it.

“Can you at least tell me what it’s about?” 

Her expression softened.

“I’ll tell you everything when I’m back. I promise you, Steve.”

 _And a promise is unbreakable._ Steve wondered if she still believed that, if she still lived by it.

He didn’t know how to ask it though, or if he wanted to hear her answer.

“You have my photo near your bed,” he said, quietly. 

Diana smiled. “I’m aware.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

Her tone was light, though he suspected that there was no humour in her words.

He looked down, suddenly afraid of what he would find in her eyes. “It’s been a long time. A hundred years is a long time.”

“Didn’t feel long,” she whispered. 

He felt her hands on his cheeks, her palms framing his face and the scent of her wrapping around him as she leaned towards him. Steve bowed his head until their foreheads were touching and closed his eyes.

“Diana…” 

She stroked his cheek. “We’ll talk when I come back.”

“Okay,” he repeated and took a breath. “I’ll be here.”

* * *

_Veld, 1918_

Her cloak fell to the floor, pooling in a black mass at her feet. Steve’s overcoat following suit moments later. Diana’s hands slid under the hem of his sweater, pushing it up to slip it over his head, leaving his hair tousled. She didn’t hesitate, brushing her fingers through it to smooth it down, pulling him towards her. She liked the way he tasted, the way his hands felt as they moved over her skin and the shudder of desire that raced down her spine each time he whispered her name and the heat in his eyes that made her breath catch.

When he kissed her again, hot and slow, drawing every inch of sense and reason out of her, she thought of the tales of love and devotion the history of her people was stitched of, woven into a pattern that stretched like canvas across time. She had never truly understood why wars were started for passion, and won by it, too. She thought she did now, at last. Could feel it running through her body, thrumming along with her heartbeat faster and faster with every breath she took.

Steve slipped his hands into hers and laced their fingers together, holding them above her head as he moved over her, the heat pooling inside of her, her mind clouded with the haze of pleasure. He trailed his lips along her jaw before pressing an open-mouthed kiss to her throat. 

Her eyes slammed shut, spine arching against him. She wondered if he could feel her pulse stutter, if he could hear her heart beating. She stopped wondering when he breathed out her name, his voice reverent, like a prayer. 

And then she stopped thinking altogether...

Now she was draped over Steve’s chest, her head tucked under his chin and her hand running idly back and forth along the pale scar beneath his collar bone. One that she had kissed not so long ago, his heart a steady thrum beneath her palm. She loved it, loved the way his body felt pressed against hers, their legs tangled; loved the warmth of his skin and the rhythm of his heartbeat, and that he couldn’t seem to stop touching her, his hand tracing patterns over the expanse of her back.

Outside, the noise had died down eventually. The music was still playing, quietly. Diana could hear people talking and an occasional burst of laughter. Somewhere in a room down the hall, someone was snoring loudly. She thought she recognized it as Charlie, the corners of her mouth curving upwards. But the thought was fleeting and didn’t linger, like all things insignificant.

They had talked for a while afterwards, in soft, low voices that felt like a secret. About his family and hers, small things that had filled the silence, words punctuated with kisses. He had told her about the last time he had seen his parents, right before he had left for the front, none of them knowing if they’d see one another again. The day his father had given him his watch.

He had fallen silent eventually, his voice drifting off. If it wasn’t for his hand still running along her skin, Diana would have thought he had fallen asleep.

When she lifted her head to look at him, she found him gazing towards the hearth, eyes trained on the dying fire and glowing embers. She thought back to a moment on the boat when she had awoken in the night to him still sound asleep next to her, an endless sea of stars above them. She had been startled by the impulse to touch him then, to brush back the hair that had fallen across his forehead.

She didn’t fight it now, raising her hand to thread her fingers through his hair. At that, Steve turned to her and smiled, his expression still a little dazed. And she was helpless against the urge to kiss him.

He kissed her back immediately, deep and slow. Diana felt his hand slide into her hair and cup over the back of her head as his lips moved over hers, stirring desire in her blood. He had been tender, oh so tender with her earlier. Until she has told him to stop holding back. And then it had been fire. It still simmered beneath her skin.

When he drew back though, she was not disappointed. She stayed close, resting her forehead to his. He seemed to like that, bumping his nose playfully against hers.

“So, about Clio and those treatises on bodily pleasures…” he started in what she assumed was meant to pass for a casual tone.

Diana bit her lip around a smile.

“I suppose they got a few things wrong,” she admitted, trying very hard to keep her voice even.

Quite a few things, she amended in her mind.

Steve’s lips quirked. “Yeah?”

“You were not joking about spies being rather vigorous, either,” she murmured, touching her thumb to his bottom lip, delighted to see his eyes widen and the tops of his cheek grow pink.

Steve groaned in the back of his throat and rubbed the corners of his eyes. “I’m going to pay dearly for every single thing I’ve ever said to you, aren’t I?”

She rolled onto her side, rising up on her elbow. Her body was still pressed against his, and she had no intention of changing that. “I can think of a few things, yes,” she noted, knowing that it would get a reaction out of him, unable to help the grin that sprung across her face when his cheeks turned an even brighter shade of crimson.

He didn’t break eye contact though, smiling back at her instead. Which made her wonder if he knew how lovely it was—his smile, when he meant it; when it touched his eyes. When his gaze was no longer clouded with grief. It made her want to never stop saying things that would keep it right where it was now.

For a moment or two, they were quiet, Steve’s eyes moving over her features in the near dark as he played idly with a strand of her hair.

Eventually, his smile dimmed a little, a slight frown appearing between his eyebrows.

“This is real, isn’t it?” he asked after another moment, his eyes searching hers.

Diana smiled. “Why wouldn’t it be?” she inquired as her fingers traced the jut of his collarbone.

“On the boat, I dreamed about—” he cut off suddenly, the colour returning to his face immediately. “Not this,” he said quickly and cleared his throat. She trailed her fingers along his jaw, and made a mental note to kiss every last trace of shyness out of him later. And maybe he would be kind enough to return the favour and kiss every last trace of reason out of her as well. “I dreamed about you saving me,” he said, brows drawn together pensively. “Not just from drowning, but… saving me, from everything.”

Diana watched a shadow of anguish pass over his face, her heart giving a dull tug of longing in response—there was something he didn’t seem to know how to tell her, and whatever it was, she could feel it cutting through him like a knife.

“Steve,” she said, quietly. She brushed her thumb to his chin, his stubble prickly against her skin. His eyes, when they met hers, were bright and earnest and impossibly blue, making her breath rush out of her lungs. No one had ever looked at her like that, with so much devotion she could feel it like a touch. “I would not have minded if you’d dreamt about this,” she said quietly.

Steve’s mouth went a little slack and for a moment, he merely gaped at her, hungry and a little desperate, his eyes growing dark with need and sending a surge of heat that curled up her spine.

“Yeah?” he echoed, his voice low and hoarse, making her heart give a hollow thud against her breast bone. 

Diana smiled. “Yes.” 

His jaw worked for another second, but in the end, he clamped his mouth shut and swallowed. She arched an eyebrow at him, certain that she could feel his heartbeat spike beneath her palm as his gaze dropped to her mouth and he had to visibly make an effort to drag it back up.

“Hang on a second,” he muttered.

He pulled away from her and slipped out of the bed.

Diana sat up, watching him crouch in front of the hearth and add the last of the wood that had been left beside it to the few embers that glowed among ashes. He prodded them with the iron poker left leaning against the wall and added more kindling until the fire caught on, flames shooting up with an audible crack, their warm glow turning his skin the colour of honey, taut muscles moving beneath it. She remembered the way they felt under her hands. 

“Just a trick Chief taught me,” Steve said, glancing at her over his shoulder. He set the poker aside, pleased with the result. “A fool-proof one, apparently.”

Another bout of snores had them both looking towards the door.

“Charlie?” Diana inquired, amused.

Steve laughed as he uncurled from his crouch and stood up. “Yeah. That’s why he always gets his own room, lucky bastard. Not even Sami can deal with that. And believe me, Sami can sleep through anything.”

Diana's heart swelled at the sound of fondness in his voice.

When Steve was close enough, she reached for his hand, fingers curling around his wrist as she pulled him back into bed.

“Stay with me.”

“Didn’t want you to get cold,” he explained, reaching up to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear.

“I’m not cold.”

She caught his gaze and held it, watching the humour drain out of his eyes, replaced by something that made her heartbeat stutter.

She thought he would kiss her then. Wanted him to kiss her. Wanted so much more.

It was an odd feeling, and entirely unfamiliar, too. For as long as Diana could remember, she had lived in anticipation of a moment when she could prove herself. Having to stand back ever since she was born, watching her sisters finesse the art of battle while she had been kept at the sidelines; having to fight for her right to belong among them, always different in nature and in her status; having to show time and time again that she was worthy, not by birth but by how hard she worked to be one of them.

And here she was, hours away from completing the mission of her people; the enemy they had waited to come for them for so long within her reach. Earlier today, she had felt her blood flow and her heart beat faster than ever as bullets ricocheted off her shield and gauntlets. She had been able to feel a power course through her system the likes of which she had never known before.

Yet, here in this room, with this man, it was not the fight she yearned for. It was for time to pause and the hours of the night still stretching before them, and for everything beyond the battle.

Steve didn’t kiss her. Instead, he twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. She thought she could hear his fear thrumming in his pulse. 

“What’s gonna happen tomorrow?” he asked in a whoosh of breath that made her shiver.

Diana didn’t hesitate.

“I’m going to kill Ares. And we will stop the war.”

She watched a flicker of doubt chase behind his eyes, but he didn’t argue. He nodded instead, though he wasn’t looking at her, and she didn’t know what to make of it. Unlike the time when they were making love, she couldn’t seem to find a way to read him, now.

She leaned towards him, until their faces were nearly touching. “Do you believe me?” she asked.

He lifted his eyes to hers, his hand lingering at her cheek.

“I believe that only a miracle can stop this madness. And you are one, Diana.”

She leaned into his touch, turning her face to kiss the heel of his palm.

“You know, I spent two years wishing the war away,” he said after a moment. “But now… If I could go back in time, somehow, I wouldn’t change a single thing. Not even the war. Not if it meant not finding you.” He chuckled, humourlessly. He pulled away from her and scrubbed his hand down his face, dropping his gaze. “What kind of person thinks that?”

“It’s not a sin to want to be happy, Steve.”

When he didn’t respond, she reached for his hand, weaving their fingers together. When she looked up, she found him watching her.

“We’re together in that way now, yes?” she asked, quietly.

The corner of his mouth curled up, and then he let out a small laugh. “Yes,” he said, as he lifted their hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her fingertips. “Yes, we are.” 

He ducked his head, resting his forehead against her temple. An unsteady breath stuttered out of his chest, and Diana couldn’t help but turn her face, lips brushing against his brow.

“Will you come with me?” he asked. “When this is over, would you like to come to America with me?”

“Yes.”

He glanced up, a smile lurking behind his eyes. “You could meet my family.”

She smiled back. “Meet your family?”

“Hey, I’ve met yours. And mine is less likely to point weapons at you.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“Alright then,” she murmured and leaned forward, brushing her mouth to his, her heart a wild flutter against her ribs when she felt his smile against her lips. “After it’s all over, yes?”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“You should get some sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep, I want…”

She felt his hand slide up her thigh and around her waist until it splayed over the small of her back. She let her hand thread through his hair, a low hum rising in the back of his throat when she deepened the kiss, white-hot desire shooting through her veins.

She leaned back, taking him with her, pulling him over her.

“Diana,” he breathed against the curve of her throat, his mouth travelling across her collar bone and across her chest and further down her sternum.

She closed her eyes and let herself fall.

* * *

_Gotham, 2018_

A wail of an ambulance siren pierced the cold night, drawing Diana’s attention to the red blinking dot far below for a moment. The sound died down seconds later, swallowed by a gust of wind.

Perched on a ledge near the rooftop, she observed the gleaming expanse of the city below. She had always liked Gotham better from afar, where you couldn’t see its unsavoury underbelly and everything that often made it a headline of every single paper in the city. She had wondered once or twice what it was that made it so appealing to Bruce that he had never left, despite having the means and reasons to walk away and never look back.

Her gaze moved from one dark building to another as she searched for movement or, perhaps, a familiar shape frozen in a pose similar to her own.

She could have called him, Diana knew. It would have been easier to find Constantine if she’d asked Bruce for help. But even with the phone in her hand and her thumb hovering over his name, she had hesitated. Part of it was because she knew he’d want an explanation and Diana suspected he would go looking for one if she refused to provide it. And part of it was because she never quite figured out where they stood with their relationship after she had awoken in his bed one morning.

She had slipped out of the house before he had roused, and neither of them had ever talked of what had happened between them or even acknowledged it. Which would have been fine, had it not been for that unspoken thing hanging between them since. One that made Diana search for words harder than she normally would, skirting around things that needed to be said. And one that would make it hard for Bruce to look her in the eye on those rare occasions when they ended up in the same room alone. To be fair, he had never tried bringing it up with her, either. Which left Diana feeling relieved. Which, in turn, made her feel like a coward and left an unpleasant aftertaste in her mouth.

But if there was a social protocol regarding asking one man she had slept with to help her figure out how to keep another man in her life, Diana was not aware of it. Hence, why she was out there blindly searching the night in hopes that she might get lucky in locating Bruce’s arch-nemesis on her own, while also hoping she wouldn’t run into Bruce himself. She was not sure how he’d take it if he knew she had come to Gotham without saying a word to him—not that she had to—but the entire situation was complicated enough without adding another layer to it. Diana didn’t want to tangle someone else in this all, not unless she had no choice but to do so.

She only wished Constantine was an easier man to locate.

A flicker of something in the dark below her had her senses prickling as she just made out the sight of a familiar beige trench coat. In the near-complete darkness, the red tip of his lit cigarette was glowing like a beacon.

Diana stood up, adrenaline spiking in her blood. She leaped forward, swallowed almost immediately by the shadows where the light of the night city couldn’t reach between tall buildings. She landed almost soundlessly on the wet asphalt, the soft thump of it swallowed by a mechanical noise coming from somewhere behind her.

Constantine paused in his tracks. In the pale light of a bare bulb hanging over some back door, Diana watched him blow out a puff of smoke.

“You’re not as discreet as you think you are.” He turned slowly, unconcerned, and tapped the ash off the end of the cigarette with his finger before sticking it back between his lips. He grinned and saluted at her. “Your Highness.”

“What did you do, John?”

“You might want to be more specific, Princess.” Constantine shook his head and heaved an exaggerated sigh behind which she glimpsed weary lines around his eyes. The lopsided smile remained intact though. As did, it seemed, his assumption that she was in a mood for banter. “Been a long week.”

In an instant, Diana lunged at him, her hand closing around his throat as she slammed him against the brick wall, his feet dangling above the wet asphalt. His half-finished cigarette fell into a puddle at her feet, the burning glow going out with a soft hiss.

“Answer me,” she demanded.

“Windpipe,” Constantine croaked, his fingers clawing at her hand. Diana pressed her lips together, displeased, and released him. He collapsed against the wall, unsteady on his feet for a moment of two, as he sucked in a hungry breath, and then another. “Blimey, you’re strong,” he muttered, voice hoarse, but the admiration in his tone and a crooked smile made Diana roll her eyes all the same.

Slowly, he straightened up and brushed the grime off his coat. He spotted his cigarette on the ground and let out a pained sigh, shaking his head with dismay for good measure with that very flare for dramatics that vexed Bruce so and made Diana regret letting him go.

Eventually, Constantine cleared his throat and adjusted his tie with the air of an awful lot of self-importance.

“Not that I mind when a woman goes for my jugular…” he added, flashing another toothy grin into the night. He pulled a cigarette pack out of the pocket of his coat and shook one out, sticking it in his mouth before he retrieved a silver lighter as well. Diana watched him click it a couple of times before the flame shot out, oddly bright in the dark alley. “Now, to what do I owe the pleasure? And believe me, the pleasure is all—”

“A week ago, you sold something to Bruce Wayne,” Diana interjected. “A charm.”

“Ah, that pretty little pendant. Yes.” Constantine took a long drag and then exhaled slowly, watching her through the haze of smoke. “You want one too, Princess? Sorry, no can do. It was one of a kind. I do have quite a wide variety—” 

“What did you do with it?”

It took him a second to catch on, his brows knitting together as the realization dawned.

“Wait, it was for _you?”_ He grimaced. “Bollocks, I owe Batty an apology.”

Diana’s heart stuttered, blood roaring up in her veins. She thought of Steve’s smile and the warmth of his hand in hers, the thought of all of that being yet another trick landing on her like a punch to her gut.

“John,” she started with a warning.

He raised his hands quickly. “Nothing! Nothing, I swear. I didn’t do anything to it. He was asking around for it. I knew where to find it, so I kindly offered my services, is all. He’s not the most popular guy in certain circles, you know. I was just trying to be helpf—” 

“And?” Diana interjected.

“If I knew it was for you, I’d’ve offered him a discount, not demanded double its price. Maybe ask him to put in a good word for me as a bonus. With you, I mean.” He shrugged and gave her body a pointed sweep with his gaze.

It was then that Diana noticed that her hands were clenched in tight fists. She took a breath and willed herself to relax them, not trusting the sense of relief that Constantine’s words had brought on just yet. So much so that she dismissed his last comment entirely.

“Are you sure—”

He rolled his eyes impatiently. “Yes. Batty is an intolerable asshole, as we both know, but I’ve got a reputation to uphold and he’s not worth tainting it over some trinket.” He cocked an eyebrow, giving her yet another once-over. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

She turned to leave.

“Maybe I could help,” Constantine called after her.

Diana paused in her tracks. When she turned around, he had his cigarette pinched between his thumb and his index finger, studying the glowing end of it pensively. He looked up and smiled, hand reaching up to adjust his tie again. He smoothed his palm over it.

“What, a guy can’t feel generous once in a while?” he inquired when she merely regarded him skeptically.

“A guy can,” Diana said flatly, and Constantine smirked. She considered him, eyes narrowed in mistrust. “What would it cost me?”

“I’ll put it on Batty’s tab.”

Diana sighed.

Her eyes skittered around the alley, moving along the brick walls and exposed pipes, pausing on boarded-up windows. In the distance, she could hear a wail of a police siren. This was the world that had changed Bruce’s life forever, once. The same world to which Barbara Ann had been lost.

“I was going to use the pendant to locate someone. Someone who went missing 34 years ago.”

When she looked at Constantine, his smirk was still in place but his gaze had softened in a way she had never seen before.

“Did you find them?” he asked as he flicked the cigarette butt on the ground and stepped on it with the toe of his shoe.

She folded her arms across her chest. “No, I found someone else. Someone who was supposed to be dead.”

Constantine blinked and whistled quietly under his breath. “Not something I hear every day. And believe me, there are things—” 

“If you put some spell on it…” she began.

But he was shaking his head, and frowning, too. Diana didn’t like the sight of it. She knew how to deal with him when he was intentionally intolerable, but the man standing before her now seemed too unpredictable for her liking. 

“It closed the circle,” he said after a moment, rubbing his cheek. His eyes, when they met hers, were piercing, unnervingly so. “Did you touch it?”

“Yes. But I don’t under—”

“Do you mind if we…”

He didn’t finish, his voice cut off by a loud clap of his hands. Instantly, the alley was flooded with white light, so bright that Diana flinched away from it, squeezing her eyes shut and lifting her arm to cover them to shield herself from it.

When she opened them again, seconds later, she was no longer outside. Instead, she found herself in a cramped room with books lying around in stacks, some of them crammed onto narrow bookshelves. A table was pushed against a wall with papers and what looked like ancient parchments lying all over it, as well as coffee mugs. 

Diana wrinkled her nose at the sight of ashtrays sitting all over the room.

“You live here?” she asked.

“Nah, Zee hates this place.”

“I wonder why.”

They were still in Gotham. Diana could tell that from the skyline outside the small window. Could hear it too—the unmistakable soundtrack of police sirens, the monorail and voices morphing into a white noise that she had long grown accustomed to ignoring.

Ashtrays aside, the place was… neat, in a way. In the same manner that the Batcave was neat—though, to an outsider, it could seem like utter chaos, Bruce never needed more than a few seconds to find anything he was after. She shook her head, amused by the idea of drawing similarities between the two that she knew Bruce would never agree with.

“A bloke’s gotta have his own space,” Constantine muttered. He was pulling books from the shelves and flipping through them impatiently before returning each back in its place. “Besides, I gotta keep some stuff I need for… ah, _business_ somewhere, right?”

When Diana glanced at him, he turned to her and grinned.

She shook her head. “If you say so.”

He moved to a stack of books leaning against a wall covered with faded wallpaper and pulled one out from the middle, as the rest of them toppled to the floor at his feet with dull thuds.

“So, you and Batty…” he started conversationally without looking at Diana.

She snapped her head up.

“Why would you say that?”

Constantine shot a quick glance at her. “No? My bad, must have gotten it wrong.” Diana’s frown deepened. “He just always seemed like—A-ha!”

Diana perked up when he paused, his palm splayed over the yellowed page as his eyes moved along the lines. When he shoved the book at Diana, she nearly staggered backwards.

“What am I looking at?” she inquired.

“Does this seem familiar?”

She studied the page and the words written in runes next to a drawing she failed to make anything out of. She turned the book sideways, but it didn’t make any more sense.

She lowered it down.

“I don’t understand any of this. Can you explain?”

Constantine sighed with pointed exasperation. He took the book from her.

“The pendant has some magic on its own, but ideally, it needs to be used as part of a spell or whatever. Thing is, I know for a fact that it had been in the possession of just one person for the past half a century or so. Doesn’t matter who, bloke’s dead anyway. So I kinda figured that whoever did this,” he pointed at the page, “didn’t have it—whenever.”

“In 1984,” Diana said quietly.

Constantine quirked an eyebrow at her. “Right. So… the spell was not finished properly. Until you—and I’m guessing you were part of it—touched it, thus completing it.”

Diana didn’t respond at once.

The Dreamstone. It must not have been meant to be used on its own. That must be why it had given Maxwell Lord so much power until he was akin to a god while also weakening him so fast. And that, she suspected, explained why destroying it had not returned Barbara Ann to her human self the way it had so easily undone her own wish.

The reason she had been looking for the pendant in the first place was because according to some historical texts she had come across, it was meant to help locate what was lost. She had figured that after failing to track down Barbara Ann over the past thirty odd years, it was worth a try.

But Diana had made a wish, too. And if Constantine was correct, closing the circle had made it come true, in the way she’d wanted all along.

“It likely didn’t work,” Constantine continued, either oblivious to her stunned state, or ignoring it entirely — Diana wasn’t entirely sure. “Without the pendant, that is. Or it backfired.” He shrugged and slammed the book shut before peering at Diana, one eyebrow raised. “Which was it?”

She thought of Steve’s hand in hers, in 1984, feeling so real. And then, of his clothes in her closet with the lingering scent of him on them but no man to wear them and the memories she had made with him feeling worthless and the feeling of emptiness in her chest so consuming Diana had thought it would swallow her whole.

For years, she had wondered if she’d have preferred to continue living a lie, given the choice, just so she wouldn’t have to lose him again. To this day, she still didn’t know what her answer would be.

She looked away from Constantine and shook her head, refusing to answer.

“What now?” she asked.

“Whatever do you mean?” he inquired, lighting up another cigarette.

“Now that the spell is complete… what does it mean?”

He shrugged. “Everyone gets to live happily ever after, yadda, yadda, yadda, the usual.”

“Is it permanent?” she pressed with growing impatience.

She could feel her heart beating faster, her breath hitching in her throat. Diana’s fingers curled into fists as she watched the man before her with more hope than she had allowed herself to feel in decades. More than she had felt with Steve asleep with his arm wrapped around her the night before, or in the moments when his hand was clasped around hers. Thousands of miles away, and he had never felt more solid to her than he did in the second that it took Constantine to respond, the life Diana had imagined for herself and her long-lost pilot flashing before her eyes.

She wanted so badly for all of this to be true she could barely breathe.

“Well, I mean, you can do a reverse one,” Constantine offered matter-of-factly as he stacked the books scattered all over the floor into a precarious-looking pile again. “Or you could—” He jerked his chin towards the sword behind her back and made a poking gesture with his finger. “No one’s immune to that.”

She narrowed her eyes a little, regarding him with suspicion.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

He puffed a cloud of smoke out of the corner of his mouth and smiled. How he managed to do both things at the same time, Diana had no idea. 

“Like I said, it goes on Batty’s tab.” He straightened up and gave her a pointed once-over. “Besides, you’re a sight for my sore eyes. Can never say no when a nice lady is in trouble.”

Diana scoffed.

And then her smile faltered as another thought struck her, hard and fast, leaving her mind reeling.

“Can you make it irreversible?” she asked, barely swallowing the tremor in her voice.

Constantine blinked at her. “Come again?”

“The spell, the one that I completed.” The one that had brought Steve back to her. After all this time… Her stomach churned at the memory of his form dissipating before her. “Can you make it irreversible?”

Just the thought of having him for good, without fear, without doubt, was making her dizzy. The real him, hers at last.

If he still wanted her, if he wanted to be with her. He had, once.

She felt her breath rush out of her, more frightened than she had ever been of losing this fragile sliver of hope.

Everything she’d ever wanted—

She pushed the memory of those words aside.

“Well, I mean…” Constantine started. He rubbed the back of his neck and offered her a cocky grin. “Is there anything I _can’t_ do?”

“Can you?” Diana pressed.

“Depends.”

“On?”

She was starting to get frustrated with his non-answers.

“See, I’m a businessman, Your Majesty.”

“How much?” Diana interjected, growing impatient.

Constantine sighed. “Now you sound just like Batty.”

“How much, John?”

“I’m sure we can work it out,” he said smoothly. “As soon as you figure out it’s what you really want. You know, you can’t just go back and forth on those things. Hey, you still work in that fancy place with a lot of fancy toys that may or may not be useful in our line of business?”

She shook her head. “Not happening.”

He shrugged and slid his hands into the pockets of his coat, seemingly not at all taken aback by her refusal to let him run wild in the Louvre.

“As I said, we can work something out. But in the meantime—”

He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers. Immediately, the room was flooded with bright white light. And again, instinctively, Diana flinched away from it, squeezing her eyes shut.

When the light faded and she looked around, she found herself back in the alley where she had located Constantine earlier.

Alone.

* * *

To end this chapter on a higher note... while editing this part, akajb and I got to talking about the Grumpy Bat meme and she asked me if it existed. A quick google search revealed that it didn't, so we made it (because there is literally nothing writers wouldn't do have an excuse to procrastinate) :) Apologies for posting it in the body of the fic but it's easier to modify the size here. Quite a few of you found the idea of Steve being introduced to memes funny so... why not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I just couldn't help myself with that meme :)
> 
> I know a few of you might not be very happy about that one small detail. You know which one. I swear on my life this is a purely Diana/Steve story with quite a lot of, well, _that_ kind of content, so worry not! Fun fact: I wrote the jewelry store robbery here without knowing there would be a jewelry store robbery in WW84, so... I didn't change it, but it is merely a coincidence and not a nod to the film. Just sharing bits of writing trivia :) s
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you'll stick around for what's coming next! As always, feedback, speculations or just yelling about how much you love Wonder Woman and Steve/Diana is much appreciated!  
> (Just please be kind even if you don't agree with the creative liberties I took, I swear it will all play out nicely)
> 
> More coming soon, stay tuned!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone :) I come bearing gifts, namely another 10k chapter! Thank you so much for your support guys, you have been nothing but wonderful and I'm so grateful :) The next few chapters will be quite emotional (and yet funny) so feel free to brace yourselves, I cannot wait to share them.
> 
> Dig in and have fun!

_ Paris, 2018 _

Steve awoke to a grey sky hanging low over the rooftops and a layer of drizzle coating the window, the city on the other side of it smudged and blurry.

For a long moment he simply lay there, listening to the muffled sounds floating in from the outside — cars honking and birds chirping and someone down the street calling out someone else’s name — amazed by the serenity of it and waiting, always waiting, for the rapid staccato of a machine gun or the sonic boom that always followed the explosion of a bomb as it hit the ground, his skin prickling and the fine hairs standing on his arms before he knew what was happening.

The lack of it, the absence of anticipation almost made him ache. He never knew that relief could be so… physical. Something he could feel with his skin. All the time he had spent trying to make it to the other side of the war, he had never really paused to imagine what that would be like.

He did now, and it was suddenly more overwhelming than he had anticipated.

Steve rolled onto his back and scrubbed a hand down his face, rubbing away the remnants of sleep still clinging to his brain.

For the second time in as many days, he had woken up in Diana’s bed without her. Yesterday, at least, she was still in the apartment. 

He listened carefully for another moment in a desperate hope of catching the sound of her footsteps, or her voice coming from the study, on the off chance she was back already. She had said it wouldn’t take long. He wondered what that had meant, specifically, kicking himself for not clarifying when he had still had a chance. She’d lived for hundreds of years. A few decades probably felt like nothing but a blink to her.

He hoped she hadn’t meant it in that way.

Steve craned his neck and looked around the room, and then, resigned, he sat up. His clothes were folded neatly on the chair where he’d left them. On the bedside table, a digital clock read 9:27 – most of the clocks and watches he had encountered so far were digital. Odd, but he kind of liked it. For a brief moment, he contemplated going back to sleep. It wasn’t like there was much else for him to do anyway, while he waited for Diana to return.

He sighed and dismissed the idea as soon as it popped up in his head, his mind too awake even with all the idle hours stretching before him with little he could do to fill them. Instead, he reached on impulse for the framed photo of himself sitting behind the alarm clock.

_ Why do you think?  _ Diana had said the night before when he’d asked her why she had it.

Her words had made his stomach twist in a not altogether unpleasant way then.

Steve felt his brows knit together as his gaze moved over the short text underneath the photograph – something they’d likely gotten from Etta,  he assumed. He hadn’t realized the previous morning that it was a posthumous recognition of his bravery during the war, an in memoriam notice in a local paper.

Which made sense, he thought. Of course, it made sense, why else would there be a picture of him in a newspaper, to begin with? He swallowed, feeling a little sick to his stomach. The idea of Diana going to bed and waking up every day with a reminder of his death beside her was wrong, somehow, leaving him with cold dread in the pit of his stomach. It didn’t feel like devotion anymore, not the way it had when he had first seen it.

He put it back and looked away, adamant to ignore it from now on. 

In the hallway, he could hear an old-fashioned clock ticking the seconds away. Suddenly, it was unbearable that Diana was not there. That Steve didn’t know when she was coming back. Her apartment, while stylish and comfortable and lovely, felt too large and too empty and entirely too lonely without her in it.

The thought made his chest constrict with longing, all the air rushing out of his lungs.

Steve pushed the feeling aside and climbed out of the bed.

In the kitchen, he poked at the buttons on the coffee machine, pleased to hear a quiet whir inside of it and smell the aroma of coffee that started to fill the space around him. He was pleased, and more than a little relieved, still a bit unsure if Diana would be mad at him if he broke something.

He wasn’t sure if waking up properly was going to make him feel better about her not being there, but seeing as how he could hardly feel worse, it was a fair shot, he decided. 

The previous night, before she had left, Diana had taken him to a place called a supermarket. Which, as far as Steve was concerned, completely lived up to its name. He had never seen such an abundance of food in his entire life. Wasn’t sure he had seen that much food in  _ all  _ of his life, even. And such selection, too.

He had spent a full half an hour standing in front of a display with something like twenty different types of milk, dumbfounded beyond measure by the very concept of oat milk and rice milk and skim, whatever that was.

“What’s wrong with a normal one?” he had asked in a mortified whisper, mindful of not being overheard.

(Though, despite his paranoia, no one had seemed to care.)

“Well, some people do it for health reasons when they develop an intolerance,” Diana had explained, trying hard not to smile. “Others choose not to have animal products in their diet.”

Steve had blinked. “They what?”

She had steered him away—he had yet to have her explain to him the idea behind drinking oats, and how would anyone even milk them?—and Steve had been grateful, still a little too overwhelmed. 

It had been worse than the clothes, in a way. He had expected the food to remain mostly the same, even a century later. Fashion, he could understand. Having more milk and cheese and types of bread than he could ever imagine possible had made his head hurt. Had made him feel lost and confused, and more than a little disoriented in that bright place with its loud music playing overhead and faceless people making announcements from the small loudspeakers under the ceiling.

She had also told him to pick whatever he wanted, but in the end, Steve had let her decide. He had spent the last two years of his life living off rations that would make dry clay taste like ambrosia. For all of his skepticism that afternoon, he wouldn’t have actually turned down that mushed fruit bowl thing, as he was sure it was still a step up from rations. And he sure as hell was not going to get fussy over the brand of cheese.

“Just no green mush,” he had murmured, leaning closer to Diana lest someone overhear him and casting a surreptitious look around.

And then he had caught a whiff of her perfume that made the back of his neck grow hot.

And then she had pressed her lips around a smile that had made him forget about everything else, even the disembodied voices encouraging people to buy eggs at half price.

Afterwards, back at her apartment, Diana had given him a crash course of the technology and appliances she owned. A bread-maker had given him a pause — “Why would you want to make your own bread when you can buy so many different kinds?” and he had yet to grasp the concept behind the workings of a microwave. The coffee maker had been easy enough, at least as far as Steve’s needs were concerned, but her smart fridge had made him feel rather dumb, by comparison.

Steve had a very vague recollection of listening to Diana speak of something that she had called television—something that was like a movie theatre at home, but in colour, and with sound, and with hundreds of things to watch that one could choose from. But by the time they had gotten to it, his brain had felt too overloaded with information.

And lastly, she had shown him something called a laptop computer that, like her phone, also had that internet thing. Something where, she had explained, a person could find information about nearly anything in the world, in all languages.

Steve wasn’t sure he believed her—it had reminded him of the moment in the caves beneath her mother’s palace where she had told him that her people could speak hundreds of languages.

Although, admittedly, that had proven to be true.

He was not sure what he was supposed to do here without Diana. She hadn’t told him if anything was off-limits, though he suspected that was not because nothing was, but because they were short on time.

He considered the television unit that was taking up most of the wall in the living room but decided against it. The small thing with buttons that Diana had used to show him how to turn it on and off seemed to be as smart as her fridge, and the abundance of technology that looked both confusing and very expensive was still making him a little nervous.

He was a spy, a soldier. He knew how to survive when bullets whistled over his head and how to sneak in and out of enemy territory alive. He’d had to pretend to be someone he was not—and he was good at it. 

This life? There was no pretending here. Steve wondered, with a pang of dread in the pit of his stomach, how long it had taken Diana to get used to living in his world as though it was her own. Was it different because it hadn’t been quite so sudden as it was for him now? Or was it like stepping into a pair of new shoes and nothing more than that?

A hundred years ago, he was acutely aware of how different they were, and yet, it had barely mattered. If he had made it, if Diana still wanted to be with him, he wouldn’t have cared, he knew that. Now, with the tables turned, he had assumed it would feel the same way, only the other way around. Diana’s time in his world should have brought them closer, but Steve couldn’t help but feel like the abyss between them had only grown wider, against all logic and reason.

He didn’t like the feeling and the twinge of panic that it brought on with it.

He pushed that thought aside and decided to focus on something more immediate. Like getting some food into his stomach, and maybe another cup of coffee. His gaze skated over the TV once again, pensively, but then he remembered the two bookshelves in the study, somewhat comforted by the idea that even a century later people still read books.

He made himself eggs and toast, pleased with the result, and even more so—with not setting anything on fire by accident. She had been nothing but kind to him so far, but he didn’t think she would appreciate him burning her home down.

Steve was in the process of pouring that second cup of coffee, intent on taking it to her study and checking out Diana’s collection of books, when a high-pitched, melodic sound broke the stillness of the morning. Startled, Steve snapped his head up.

A telephone. A cordless receiver left on the kitchen counter. It was far less baffling than Diana’s cell phone with its touch screen and email and everything right inside of it, but the ringing made Steve pause all the same.

He thought back to the time last night with him and Diana standing on her balcony, night air tugging at her hair and the light of the reading lamp inside making the golden parts of her armour glow. She hadn’t told him anything about the phone, or whether he should answer it. Or maybe she had, but he had completely missed it because he was too busy staring at her and trying to keep thinking straight.

It was, perhaps, not appropriate for him to answer, he thought. But what if it was an emergency? She was Wonder Woman, after all. He was aware that it was not a widely known fact, but  _ he _ knew, and so it was not impossible that someone else did, too. Or maybe it was Diana herself, calling to check up on him.

The thought made Steve’s heart stutter and lurch into a sprint. The desire to hear her voice was almost unbearable.

He tried to remember if she had taken her small phone with her. He didn’t remember seeing it last night, or anywhere in the apartment that morning. She probably didn’t really need it to call him, though. There could be regular phones, where she’d gone.

If this was her, and he didn’t answer, she would likely get worried, Steve reasoned with himself. And he didn’t want to worry her—he suspected he’d already given her a few moments of concern as it was.

The last thought propelled him to pick up the phone and press the big button. 

_ “Really, Di? You’re going to ignore my calls and texts and miss the Justice League get-together — the second one, by the way — but you pick up your house line?” _ a young voice said before Steve could utter so much as a word. A guy, speaking a mile a minute.  _ “Rude.” _

Steve pulled the receiver away from his ear and looked at it, before saying carefully, “Hello?”

There was a pause on the line.

_ “Sorry, must be the wrong number.” _

Steve cleared his throat. “Are you looking for Diana?” he offered.

Another pause.

_ “Yeah. Is she there?” _

Steve looked around, as if to make sure. “No, she’s—um, out.”

_ “And you are?” _ the stranger inquired.

“I’m… I’m Steve. Steve Trevor. I’m—” he cut off, not quite sure how to proceed, and cleared his throat.

_ “Why are you answering Diana’s phone?” _ the man asked suspiciously.

“Diana is not home,” Steve reminded him.

_ “And what are you doing at her place?” _

“Um, I’m…” Steve looked down at his coffee cup

There was an audible intake of breath.

“ _ Are you her boyfriend? _ ” the voice asked, filled with so much excitement that Steve could practically feel it.

He blinked. Her boyfriend? He stumbled over the new terminology. Technically, he was a male, though  _ boy _ would probably be pushing it, especially after a hundred years. And they were friends, he wanted to believe that. They had been friends before they had become something else, so perhaps—though Steve suspected the gleeful voice on the other end was inquiring about more than friendship.

“Well, we…” he began, not sure how to proceed. It didn’t feel right to discuss it with a stranger before he talked about it with Diana herself. “I’m a friend.”

_ “But you, like, live there? With her?”  _

“I’m staying here,” Steve admitted honestly—it didn’t feel like much of a confession, and it was true.

_ “Wow,” _ the guy breathed out.  _ “She always hides her boyfriends.” _ And then,  _ “The guys are not gonna believe this.” _

Steve felt a frown form between his brows.

The way the young man phrased it, it definitely sounded like boyfriend was meant to be something intimate. How many of those was Diana supposed to have? More than one at the same time? Steve looked around once more, as though a random man could be hiding in one of her cupboards. Unbidden, jealousy flared in his stomach, white-hot.

He remembered, suddenly, that box of condoms he had seen in her bathroom cabinet. He doubted she kept it for herself. 

He hated the idea. The mental image of her in someone else’s bed, someone else’s name on her lips, was making his stomach twist and making him wish he had skipped that breakfast. But a hundred years was a long time. It was unlikely that someone like Diana would stay alone for the rest of her life, mourning someone who was not coming back. 

Steve pressed his lips together and pushed the thought aside.

Still, he had to resist the impulse to check the pantry for a possible  _ boyfriend _ .

He was about to ask who the mysterious  _ guys _ were that the young man had mentioned when something else occurred to him. Something that he should have done sooner, perhaps.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” he finally thought to ask.

_ “Oh, oops! Sorry, my bad.” _ Steve could practically hear the caller wince.  _ “I’m Barry Allen, the fastest—”  _ He cut off.  _ “I’m Di’s friend. Just a friend, I mean. I swear.” _

The name sounded familiar, snagging Steve’s attention as he disregarded a string of ramblings. It took him a moment to place it. And then the corner of his mouth twitched, curving upwards.

“You’re the one who sent a picture of an angry cat to Diana’s telephone,” he said, oddly pleased by something that felt like a real connection to this place, this time.

_ “Grumpy Cat,” _ Barry corrected him.  _ “Di showed you?” _

He sounded genuinely thrilled about the idea.

“She did,” Steve confirmed. “I thought it was funny. And very clever.”

_ “And she liked it, too?” _

Steve thought back to the moment at the café and the sunlight caught in her hair and the gentle smile that had made his heart beat differently, at the time. It was hard to believe that it had happened less than 24 hours ago.

“She seemed amused,” he offered, somewhat uncertainly, wishing he remembered her exact reaction and not just how heart-stoppingly beautiful she had been, and how he could barely focus on anything else when she was around. 

On the other end of the line, the young man let out a long, tragic sigh.

_ “Tell that to Bruce,” _ he grumbled.

“To be fair, you were comparing him to a pissed-off cat,” Steve reasoned.

_ “Huh.” _ Barry paused, and added quieter, as though speaking to himself.  _ “Maybe he doesn’t like cats.” _

Steve pressed his lips together and decided not to point out that that was not what he had meant, per se.

_ “Look, can you tell Di to call me back?” _ Barry asked, after a moment.

Steve glanced around, his eyes moving over the counter and the dining table. He spotted a notepad on a small decorative table in the hallway. “Yeah, sure.”

_ “Cool. Just tell her that Vic’s birthday is coming up and if she continues to ghost us, we’ll stop asking her to hang out—Actually, no, we won’t. Don’t say that. Just tell her about the birthday party, but tell her not to tell Vic I said that because if she calls or shows up, it should be a surprise. And say that Clark will fly in, but maybe not, because it’ll depend on Lois and her shift at the Planet, but the rest of the League will be here. And Bruce will host, if we want to hang out. Well, he probably will. I haven’t asked yet.” _

He stopped then to catch his breath while Steve stood with a pencil poised over the page.

_ “You got that?” _ Barry asked, after a moment.

Steve tried to figure out if he caught all the names. Someone named Vic had a birthday coming up and the grumpy man was going to host, probably, and something about some league. He wondered if it was about baseball. Was Diana into baseball now? She didn’t really seem like the type, if Steve was being honest with himself. But it had been a century. Maybe more had changed with her than he had first assumed.

“I think so,” he said, hesitantly.

_ “No, wait. You know what? Don’t say any of that. Just tell her to text me, ‘kay?” _

Steve paused. “Sure.”

_ Text Barry, _ he scribbled on the notepad.

_ “Cool. Bye.”  _

And then the young man hung up.

“Bye,” Steve muttered into the silence on the other end of the line.

For a few long moments, he simply stared at the receiver in his hand, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Then, for another moment or two, he expected it to come to life in his hand again. When it didn’t, Steve shook his head and padded back into the kitchen. He set the phone down and picked up his coffee, lukewarm now, but he didn’t care.

In the study, a few minutes later, he walked past the bookshelves and Diana’s impressive collection of books, the plan to check out some of them forgotten. Instead, he took a seat at her table, pulled her laptop computer towards him and turned it on the way she had shown him. There was something that Barry had said that had lodged itself in his brain like a splinter. When the screen came to life, he clicked on the thing that she’d told him could help him find things.

And then he’d carefully used the keyboard to peck out  _ Justice League _ into the search engine before pressing  _ enter _ .

* * *

_ Washington, DC, 1985 _

Diana never found out how the newspaper ended up on the desk in her office.

Later, she would go back to it and assume that the department assistant must have left it there because it mentioned the benefit that Diana and a few other members of staff had attended the week prior. One that had a whole spread dedicated to it and an article full of big words to seem more clever.

She never made it that far the first time around, her attention snagged on a smaller story on page 3. A mutilated body found on the outskirts of a village in Colombia, not far from the coast, accompanied by two grainy photos. Her eyes moved over the text that was brief and lacked any useful details, leaving Diana frustrated, a spark of restlessness coming to life in her belly.

She studied the photos for the longest time as she tried to convince herself that it was merely a coincidence. That the long slash marks crisscrossing the man’s body bore no likeness to those she had seen only a year ago, in the wake of Cheetah’s rampage across the city.

Diana smoothed her palms flat over the page and willed herself to ignore the coppery taste that rose in the back of her throat and the familiar pang of regret that she had grown to associate with betrayal.

Following the downfall of the wishing stone machinations and the subsequent fallout that had led to a collapse of his business, Maxwell Lord had fled the country. Diana had no doubt that one day he was going to resurface with yet another scheme meant to bring him wealth or power, or both. She didn’t care for Maxwell Lord. He didn’t owe her anything, and going after him was not going to bring Steve back. All it could do was give her a momentary sense of revenge that she knew full well would turn sour the second her anger faded and reason took over.

The thought of Steve made Diana’s chest constrict, her breath catching in her throat as her air pipe closed up.

It had taken her months to stop hearing him move about her place as though he was there, her heart rate spiking as she waited for him to step into the room. Months more to get rid of his clothes that had stopped bringing comfort and had turned into a cause of heartache instead. Unlike his watch, which she would still wear occasionally, she found that his clothes reminded her even more acutely of her loss every time she opened her closet. 

She wondered if she should have stopped missing him so desperately, after all this time. But reason and logic were of little help when she lay in bed at night, her fingers curled into tight fists around sheets and her thoughts so loud she could barely stand it.

Barbara Ann was a different story, however. Unlike Lord, she was still dangerous. And try as she might, Diana couldn’t quite get rid of the feeling of responsibility for what had happened to her. For setting Barbara Ann down the path of destruction.

And now someone else was dead, another innocent person who had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. A death that could have been prevented if Diana had acted faster, if she’d stopped Cheetah before the latter had a chance to disappear, desperate to hold on to her damned wish.

Diana pushed away from the desk and stood up, feeling a storm brewing inside of her.

The first time she had tried to track down Cheetah, the trail had quickly grown cold resulting in Diana treading blindly around a mountain range in the south. That time, it had taken her weeks to give up on her search. Driven by purpose and guilt, she had been reluctant to walk away, even if each day had felt more and more futile. It had felt, then, that she was being led around, toyed with, even though she had seen no proof of it.

And she hadn’t had any new leads since then.

Diana pressed her lips together into a stubborn line.

She had to try again.

Two days later, she was in Colombia, breathing in rich, perfumed air thick with humidity after the rain that had fallen the night before. She ignored the curious looks given to her by the villagers, the hushed whispers behind her back, the looks of half admiration and half fear, determined to stay focused on her goal.

She had long learned that there would always be people who would admire her, and those to whom she would appear to be a threat. The fear of the unknown was, after all, at the core of human nature.

There had been a time, in the years following the first war, when the feeling of disconnection from the world that she was now part of would leave her trapped, and so isolated it had felt like ice coursing through her bloodstream. Now it was easier to look away than wonder why being someone who was meant to be a bridge to understanding could feel so lonely.

There had been no sighting of Cheetah, but that was no surprise—the locals called her a demon, an evil spirit haunting the woods, and claimed that no one who was unlucky enough to cross its path had ever lived to tell the story. It would come for cattle and children, dragging them off to where no one would ever see them again.

_ “El diablo,” _ a frightened woman whispered, casting a wary look towards the thick lush of the jungle.

They told Diana it had stayed dormant for generations, but had returned now, ever-hungry. Three of the men had gone missing, only one body ever found, they said in a hushed whisper. The police had refused to set foot into the forest for fear of never coming back.

Diana listened to them carefully, cataloguing the details in her mind. Dates and time periods, stories passed on from generation to generation—those that were laughed at by the young ones until someone didn’t come back home from a day in the field or a trip to the river. And then no one was laughing anymore.

Sometimes, they told her, they could see a pair of eyes glowing between the trees.

No one agreed to take Diana to where the last body had been found—she didn’t push, leaving them to their rightful fear. She couldn’t fault them for it any more than she could fault them for being wary of her.

When the forest closed around her, Diana sensed him before she saw him. A presence where no one else should be, like a ghost hovering in her periphery. She ignored him, for a while, as she continued to make her way forward, listening carefully for anything out of place.

It was only after Diana stepped out into a clearing, overlooking a crest of a beach and the blue sea beyond it that she paused. She inhaled deeply, helpless against the tug of nostalgia as the smell of the ocean filled her lungs.

“I know you’re here,” she said after a moment and turned to her left just in time to see Chief stepping out into the clearing to her right.

“I knew you’d come,” he said, his tone mild but his eyes were alight with mischief that made Diana wonder if he had somehow planted the thought in her mind to travel here.

She pushed the idea aside, filing it away to contemplate later though not dismissing it entirely. With him, one could never be sure.

It was good to see him, regardless. Even now, all those years later, seeing Chief brought on a pang of bittersweet nostalgia tugging at loose threads of old memories in her mind. It was only the two of them now, Diana thought. Would be only the two of them for a long time.

She wondered, not for the first time, if any of them had ever known that Chief was more than he seemed. If the ever-observant Sameer had noticed something; if Charlie had ever made a comment that had hit close to home; if the curious Etta had spotted something that hadn’t quite fit. Steve, Diana was not sure about. He had known that she was more than she had appeared to be, even if he never figured out to what extent. Part of her wanted to believe he had sensed something about Chief as well, though he would have told her, wouldn’t he? That night, tangled in sheets and wrapped around each other, they had spoken for a long time, swapping stories and weaving a canvas of dreams. She wanted to believe he would have told her then, if he’d known, even if it didn’t really matter now.

Diana took a breath past the stiffness in her chest, pushing her longing aside. This was no place for that kind of sentimentality.

“She is gone,” Diana said. Not a question, though he nodded all the same.

“She is hidden by magic like you’ve never seen before,” Napi said, conversationally. If Diana didn’t know better, she would have mistaken it for boredom. But what she heard underneath it all was concern.

Neither of them was of this world, but they tried not to upset the balance of the universe, the way it was meant to be. What Barbara Ann had become was not natural; she didn’t belong. And Diana knew it bothered Chief even if he didn’t want to show it or speak of it.

Diana nodded, feeling a frown form between her brows. She should have tried harder a year ago, she thought, bitterly. Those men that had died would have still been alive if she hadn’t given up when she had.

It was then that she had understood what it was that had felt so off as she’d made her way through the forest — there had been no sense of threat prickling at the back of her neck, no feeling of malevolence or of the touch of old magic she knew she would recognize immediately.

She was too late.

“You are chasing ghosts again.”

Diana looked towards Chief, not surprised by his observation, although not entirely pleased by it, either. Before, wearing her heart on her sleeve had been the only way she knew. Now, it felt almost invasive. As if someone was peeking through a keyhole in a door that she preferred to keep locked.

“She would not have become what she is if it wasn’t for me,” Diana said quietly, all the same. 

Napi shook his head. “That’s not true, and you know it. You cannot blame yourself for every misgiving and mistake of mankind.”

She met his gaze, looking him square in the face. “It’s not the same. It’s not like it was with Steve.”

Surprise flickered across his features — they had crossed paths a few times over the years, yet neither of them had ever brought up  _ that _ night before. Which made Diana wonder if he expected her to act as though the past had never happened.

“He could have died that day even if you had stopped the plane,” he said, after a moment.

She had thought of that. That maybe Steve’s time had come and there was nothing more to it, and nothing less—but the mere thought had felt like a hot knife slicing all the way through her. It had never felt fair, but she had no right to dismiss the idea, either. Who was she, even as a demi-god, to question fate?

“Did you see it?” she asked, watching Chief closely. The question that had lived on the tip of her tongue all these years. One that she could never bring herself to ask, until now. “You told us you had not seen your own death that day, but the others?”

He smiled wistfully at her. “Why do you think no one asked when I said that? People say they want to know how and when they are going to go, but no one really does.”

Perhaps, they don’t, Diana thought but it didn’t escape her that he hadn’t actually answered her question.

Not for the first time, she wondered about her own mortality—distant but possible, regardless. She tried to imagine if Steve would have wanted to know, if it would have even made a difference, but there was no answer to that. She thought of the taste of his mouth and of his hands sliding over her body with such ease, as though he had been born to do just that.

Even if he had known the exact hour and minute of his demise, Diana thought, he would likely have never changed a thing about that night on the airfield all the same.

“She is going to kill again,” Diana said, at last, surveying the forest around her again.

Chief nodded. “She is under a spell she doesn’t understand and has no power against. Her actions are not entirely her fault.”

“She chose it, Napi. She had a chance to go back to her true self.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “And yet, you’re here.”

Because she could do nothing, or she could do something, Diana thought.

She met his gaze, holding it. “Other people are not to blame for it, they shouldn’t have to pay the price. Someone has to stop her.”

* * *

_ Paris, 2018 _

Diana landed soundlessly on the small balcony outside her bedroom, the moonless night and thick shadows that had gathered over the city after sundown masking her arrival. She could feel the pricking of cold on her skin, though it didn’t bother her as much as it would have a human. Could smell the rain in the air, as well, though it had long since stopped, it seemed, the world wrapped in the kind of silence that only followed a storm.

She glanced around, but few windows were still lit up, the city asleep as it should be. The tranquillity was deceiving, she was aware of that, but she loved it, all the same.

Diana pushed the door open and stepped inside. She was used to keeping the balcony door unlocked for just this reason, the freedom to come and go as she pleased still giving her a jolt of thrill even now. A small boundary of normalcy that no one could stop her from pushing. More shadows crowded around her, her vision adjusting quickly. The comfort of being home brought her a peace she didn’t know she was desperate for until that moment.

Comfort and—it took her another second to recognize the feeling stirring in the centre of her chest—anticipation.

For a moment, a pang of panic arched through her, the fear that had nearly had her stay back two days ago rearing its ugly head. The fear that she would leave Steve behind and then come back to an empty apartment, again. That he would disappear like he hadn’t been there at all, once more.

Her gaze landed on him then, before the thought had even fully formed in her head.

He was sprawled across her bed, his arm curled protectively around what looked like Diana’s pillow. Even in the dark, even with several feet of space between them, she could hear him breathing. Could see his shoulders rising and falling slowly.

Her heart twisted in her chest, her fingers flexing and curling into fists until she willed herself to relax them again.

There was a glass of water on the bedside table, half-full. Not hers, she knew. The framed photo of him—the one she had kept because she didn’t have many pictures of him, not even from Etta—shoved aside to make room for a book.

_ The Maltese Falcon. _

Diana felt her eyebrow arch, her lips twitching against her will. Undoubtedly fetched from her library, she thought. She didn’t remember the last time she had read it but she recalled enjoying the twists of the plot. She wondered, briefly, if Steve had picked it because of the mystery part, or because it had been released not long after his death and was less likely to contain too many references unfamiliar to him. She wondered if he liked it.

She made a mental note to ask him later, startled by the idea of having loved him for so long while knowing so little about him. Everything she had learned from his friends and his family over the years had felt monumental once. Now, with him alive and real and back in her life, it felt like barely a drop in the ocean, all of a sudden.

Her chest constricted once more. Diana took a breath around the flurry of her heart.

She stepped away from the bed and set down her shield and her sword, then unclipped the Lasso of Hestia from where it was coiled at her hip. She would put them away later. She took off her greaves and her gauntlets next, and peeled off the armour that, at times, felt like a second skin on her body. The very same armour her mother had once worn to free the world from the poison reining in men’s hearts. Diana found a tank top in the dresser and pulled it on instead, revelling in the feeling of soft cotton against her skin, so different from the stiffness of tight leather.

She glanced at Steve, smiling a little when she realized that he had never even stirred while she had moved about the room. 

Near the campfire, on the night when they had caught up with Chief, he had slept lightly, sliding into wakefulness at each rustle—Diana had noticed him blink sleepily a few times at her and Chief before dozing off again. But she had heard Sameer tease him the next day about being able to sleep through anything, even artillery fire. And that night in Veld, Steve had proven him right, much to Diana’s amusement. He hadn’t roused when she had awoken the next morning, turning carefully in the circle of his arms so she could study him in the pale grey light of dawn, her fingers mapping the planes of his face.

(He hadn’t awoken until the smell of breakfast cooking had wafted into the room through the crack under the door. Diana wondered if maybe she should mention that to him, sometime.)

She approached the bed, her footstep soundless. Carefully, she pulled the pillow from Steve’s grasp and climbed under the covers. Immediately, without waking, he reached for her, and the easiness of the gesture made something soft and tender and fragile inside of her ache.

She wondered if he had missed her while she was away. If he had missed her as much as she had missed him. As much as she had missed him all those years.

Her heart constricted, leaping against her breast bone once, then twice. He was wearing boxers, but nothing else, and his skin felt so hot against hers she wondered if his touch was going to leave a mark.

She reached for him, hand combing through his hair to brush it back from his forehead. Her fingers skittered down his cheek, over the prickly stubble coating his jaw. She tried to remember if this was how she had memorized him on that morning, a hundred years ago. But while there were memories from that time that were as bright and vivid as though they’d only been made yesterday, this particular one seemed to be slipping out of her grasp each time she reached for it.

Steve awoke then, blinking his eyes sleepily as his vision adjusted.

“Diana,” he murmured, his voice low and hoarse.

She smiled. “Hi.”

“You’re back.”

She wondered if he was actually awake. He didn’t seem surprised, nor did he appear confused about finding her in bed with him, with only a breath of air between them and one of her hands pressed flat against his chest, right over his heart that seemed to be beating straight into her.

“I am,” Diana said, all the same.

He nodded, his eyes fluttering closed.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked sleepily.

Diana’s pulse stuttered. She thought of John Constantine and his messy apartment and the easy grin on his face that hadn’t quite reached his eyes that had remained more worn out than Diana had seen in a long time. The easy conviction in his voice when he’d confirmed that he could make whatever magic had brought Steve back permanent and the surge of hope in her chest that had left her breathless.

She trailed her thumb over Steve’s chin. “Yes.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat and opened his eyes. His gaze finding hers in the dark, his hand moving up her back and leaving a trail of heat even through her tank top.

He nodded again, and without hesitation she moved closer to him, tucking her face into the curve of his neck. She was suddenly so drained she could feel it in her bones, in every cell of her body.

She could smell her soap on his skin and perhaps the aftershave he had picked up, but underneath it, he still smelled like Steve and it struck her as something impossible. How could he still smell exactly the same as she remembered? How could she still carry the memory of it—sometimes she would pretend she could still smell it on her sheets in the moments when she missed him the most.

Diana squeezed her eyes shut against the hot burn of tears, her throat growing achingly tight. Though it was not until she felt Steve tense against her, suddenly alert, that she realized that she was crying soundlessly, tired and wrung out, relieved and yet more frightened than she could remember.

“Diana?” he whispered into her ear, the sound of his voice slicing the invisible scars open all over again.

She thought he was going to ask her something—questions that she didn’t have answers to, things she could not explain even to herself. She couldn’t lose him again, she knew. Couldn’t stand the thought of it. But whether she knew how to be with him after running away from herself and her memories of him for so long, Diana couldn’t tell either, and the realization was devastating.

He didn’t add anything else though, merely tucking her into the curve of his body, his hands moving soothingly over her back.

She cried until she had no tears left, and Steve held her, whispering words of comfort to her until finally, worn out, she fell asleep.

* * *

When Steve awoke the next morning, the sun was peeking over the rooftops, having chased away the gloom of the day before. He was alone in bed, and for a moment he wondered if he had dreamed up what had happened several hours earlier. If maybe Diana had never come back and then cried herself to sleep while his heart had splintered at the seams over and over again from grief and helplessness.

He scrubbed his hand down his face and looked around, searching the edges of his memories. He was quite certain he had drifted off with his arms wrapped around her and her face tucked into the hollow of his throat. But he had dreamed of that the night before, too. Or something of that effect, albeit without the crying. He had dreamed of her every night since he’d met her, come to think of it. Even in Veld, when she had slept woven around him—as though reality alone was not enough.

The mental image made everything inside of him grow hot. He pushed it aside and rubbed his eyes again as he tried to get his thoughts straight—

And that was when he saw her shield propped against the wall and her greaves left under a chair, the golden parts gleaming in the sunlight streaming in through the glass balcony door. He blinked, only then catching the muffled whisper of the water running in the shower.

Steve stared at the bedroom door that stood slightly ajar, overcome with relief. He remembered her telling him that it wouldn’t take her long to deal with whatever it was she had needed to deal with before she’d leaped up and disappeared into the night. Yesterday, he had missed her as if someone had cut off one of his limbs but he still hadn’t expected her to be back quite so soon.

He was glad that she had, though. And more than a little concerned about what it was that had upset her so much.

He hadn’t asked and she hadn’t said anything, but he remembered her anguish as though it had been something physical taking up the space between them and all around her. The memory of it made his heart give a dull tug.

He climbed out of the bed and pulled on a shirt and, after a moment of hesitation, a pair of pants. They might have slept in the same bed both nights she had been with him in Paris, but now he was suddenly very much aware of the fact that for him, it had only been four days since they had made love in the fire-lit room in Veld, but for Diana, it had been a century. And that was… well, a long time. Something that he should have thought of earlier,  perhaps .

He hadn’t because he had been too swept away in the enormity of it all, all the newness and confusion and Diana herself. But he could feel every bloody second of it, now. A very long time, indeed.

Steve thought of Barry’s comments, and made a mental note to tell Diana about the phone call.

The clock on the bedside table read 8:43 AM. In the time of war, this would have been considered sleeping in, all things considered, but Steve was not entirely sure if this was early or late, by 21 st century standards. He considered simply waiting for her in the bedroom and then asking what had happened—he wondered if she was going to share, or merely tell him to mind his own business.

The idea stirred unease in his belly and, wanting to take his mind off of it, he chose to focus on doing something useful instead.

In the kitchen, he started the coffee and then, remembering that Diana had ordered tea with their  _ brunch  _ the other day _ ,  _ turned on the kettle as well. She had a whole cupboard with teas, Steve had discovered yesterday. And she liked chocolate spread, apparently—he had felt bad for snooping, even in her kitchen, so he had stopped there. (After he had tried the spread, that is.) But he was so hungry for more information about her, all the things he had missed or had never learned because their time together had been too fleeting that it almost felt like a physical pain.

If she sat him down and simply started telling him everything about herself, he was certain he would never want her to stop.

By the time Diana walked into the kitchen ten minutes later, wearing a sleeveless shirt and those stretchy pants that she seemed to favour, her hair falling loose over her shoulders in slightly damp waves, the coffee was ready and Steve had already pulled the makings for breakfast out of the fridge. There was a cup of tea waiting for her. Black. He might not be entirely sure what a jasmine tea was, or something called oolong, but he was good at making a decent cup of black tea—Etta had taught him well.

Diana paused when she saw him, and for a moment, Steve couldn’t help but wonder if he’d done something wrong. He glanced at the coffee pot, ready for him to fill his cup, and then at the eggs and cheese and deli meats spread over the counter, the butter ready to be dropped on the skillet. She hadn’t asked for breakfast, and admittedly, he was not a particularly gifted cook.

Maybe he should have asked.

Steve looked up at her. He should have, right?

He was about to open his mouth and apologize when he noticed that the corners of her mouth were quivering ever so slightly as she struggled to fight back a smile.

“What is this?” she asked, observing what Steve realized belatedly looked like a very messy affair.

He cleared his throat, feeling the tops of his cheeks grow hot—it had been a while since he’d made breakfast for a woman. No, scratch that. He had  _ never _ done it before, and with the guys in the barracks, it had never been about being neat.

“Breakfast,” he said, feeling a little dumb. “I made you tea,” he added quickly, as though it would compensate for the mess.

“Thank you,” Diana said.

Their fingers brushed against each other as Steve handed the cup to her, and she pulled her hand away quickly. For a moment, he thought that she was going to drop the cup, just to avoid touching him. She didn’t, but he was certain he hadn’t imagined it. He felt his brows knit together.

And that was when he remembered—

“Barry called,” Steve blurted out. “Yesterday.”

The cup clasped between her palms, Diana looked up at him. “Did he, now?”

He could have sworn she was amused by the idea.

“He was looking for you,” Steve went on. “Said he couldn’t get you on—” he gestured vaguely towards the hallway, or maybe the bedroom. “On your cell phone.”

“I didn’t have it with me,” she said.

He nodded and leaned against the counter. “Yeah, he wanted to tell you that someone named Victor is having a birthday next week, and that the bat guy will host it and that Clark might come, too, but that would depend on something happening with some planet.” He paused. “There was more, but you better talk to him. He speaks very fast.”

“That he does,” Diana admitted. 

She was pressing her lips around a smile now, laughter dancing in her eyes. 

“Anything else?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Steve felt the heat rise up his cheeks but he didn’t break eye contact.

“He asked if I was your boyfriend,” he said, watching her closely.

She cocked her head, her gaze locked on his and her voice tinged with humour when she spoke. “And what did you say?”

“I didn’t—I think he just assumed.” Steve’s gaze skittered around. “Because I answered your phone when you weren’t home. I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. What—ah, what a boyfriend is.”

“I see.”

She nodded but didn’t add anything else.

Steve waited.

“A boyfriend, or a girlfriend, is a romantic partner,” she explained. “Someone a person is in an intimate relationship with but is not married to.”

Well, he had figured as much, Steve thought.

Though he still was not sure if it had anything to do with him, or ever had. They had never—well, they had never talked about it. He had known, then, that he wanted to be with her. A hundred years later, he still did. And it frightened him not to know where Diana stood, as far as the two of them were concerned.

But he didn’t know how to ask, so he settled for the next best thing.

“And do you…” he started and faltered, not quite sure how to proceed. “Do you have one?”

She tilted her head, studying him for a few moments.

“Am I in a romantic relationship?” she echoed. “No. Don’t you think I would have told you, Steve?”

He opened his mouth, and then closed it again, not sure what he could possibly say to that. Would she? He truly didn’t know. Although he suspected she would not have found sharing a bed with him acceptable, otherwise. Not even for the sake of old memories and nostalgia.

He pushed the thought aside, suddenly ashamed of it. The Diana he had met in 1918 had been many things but never a liar. However she had changed since then, he doubted she had become one. She was not telling him something, Steve could see that much, but he was certain that she had never lied to him once.

Although her answer still didn’t clarify the one thing that he’d been dying to ask ever since he had spoken with Barry—

“Barry… he mentioned something called the Justice League,” Steve forged on instead. “Said you were missing out on… ah, visiting them. I—I looked them up on your…” he faltered. “On your computer thing.”

He thought she was going to be cross with him over it. She had made it explicitly clear that he was welcome to familiarize himself with whatever technology he was curious about, but that was different, in a way. Looking her up, on the internet, well, that was—that was personal, wasn’t it? 

Instead, Diana smiled. “You did?”

He thought of her struggling with the concept of a revolving door, all those years ago, and wondered if she found the idea of him using her laptop just as baffling.

He didn’t allow himself to ponder it any further, lest he embarrass himself even further.

“Are they like you?” he forged on. “The people that you fight alongside with, are they…”

He trailed off, feeling his brows pull together, not quite sure where he was going. Divine like her? Strong like her? Different—he knew that much already. 

“Not quite,” Diana said. “Only Arthur and Clark were born that way. They are not quite of this world.”

Steve searched his brain, but failed to connect the names with the faces he had seen earlier.

Last night, he had spent a few hours reading articles about the Justice League and watching numerous videos on something called YouTube until his eyes started to feel like someone had rubbed sand all over his eyeballs. Everyone in the media referred to Diana as Wonder Woman, like the guy in the alley, and the rest of the team also had secret identity names, from what he had gathered. Cyborg and Batman seemed quite self-explanatory, as far as their appearances were concerned. The other three—he didn’t want to make assumptions.

Briefly, he had wondered which one of them was the talkative Barry Allen.

“Aquaman and Superman,” Diana added by way of explanation, noting his confusion.

“Now you’re just saying random words,” Steve muttered and rubbed his eyes.

Her smile widened, the corners of her eyes crinkling.

God help him, she was so beautiful he had no idea how to breathe around her sometimes.

“Alright, and the others?” he prompted, deciding that he would ask her to simply find a picture and tell him who was who later, like she had done with the green toast.

“Bruce is human,” she explained.

“The bat guy?”

She bit her lip around a smile. “He likely wouldn’t be overly pleased if you called him that to his face. But yes. The Justice League was his idea. However, he is merely a man. One who has always wanted to do the right thing for those who need help.”

Steve nodded, ticking off another box in his head.

“And the other two?”

Diana folded her arms over her chest. “Barry and Victor. They have… gifts the exact nature of which is complicated.” She explained to him about some laboratory being struck by lightning, which had essentially brought the Flash to life. And then the car accident that had resulted in the creation of the Cyborg. There was science and some sort of reason behind both those things, but each time Steve tried to wrap his mind around it, the details kept escaping him.

“Wait, which one is from,” Steve pointed at the ceiling, “another planet? The robot one? He goes home often?”

Diana shook her head. “That would be Clark. Superman,” she corrected. “The American government—and the world, later on—labelled them as metahumans. People with extraordinary abilities,” she finished.

“The internet calls you all superheroes,” he offered.

“That is not a scientific title, though. And he doesn’t actually go anywhere. He works at the newspaper called  _ The Daily Planet. _ I’m assuming, Barry was talking about his workload there.”

Steve blinked at her, feeling like his mind was reeling to the point of making him dizzy.

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “And you’re a team.” 

Diana paused. He watched a shadow pass over her features, failing to quite read it.

“We were,” she acknowledged.

“Are you not anymore?”

Steve’s brows furrowed. He tried to remember if he’d read anything about that. But even if he had, the information he had consumed over the past few days was so overwhelming he probably wouldn’t have remembered either way.

Diana put her tea down and then folded her arms over her chest. “I stepped away from it, after a while.”

Steve watched as she studied the tiled floor. Perhaps, it was invasive to keep pushing, but he didn’t seem to know how to stop. “Why?” he asked.

She sighed.

“It’s complicated.” Diana rubbed her forehead and then lifted her gaze to his. “They know that I will always be there for them if they need me.”

She was not saying everything, Steve could tell that. She was not saying much of anything, truth be told. But he didn’t know if he would be crossing a line if he continued to push. He might not know the new Diana well, but he was a spy. He knew how to read people, and right now, what he saw on her face, in her eyes, was a story that seemed big and sad.

“Why were you crying last night?” he asked softly.

“I didn’t think you’d still be here when I came back.”

Her words caught him off guard, giving him a pause. “You asked me to,” he said, incredulous.

“I know I did,” she nodded.

But… There was a  _ but _ coming, yet for the life of him, Steve couldn’t figure out what it could be.

“What am I doing here, Diana?” he asked before he could stop himself.

It was her turn to look up at him in surprise.

“Besides making breakfast for me?” she clarified, a small smile creeping into her voice.

He ignored it.

“You can’t stand me touching you unless you do it first. You let me comfort you but won’t tell me what has upset you. You’ve kept my photograph for a century and we sleep in the same bed but we don’t—” he cut off, mortified by how wrong it was coming out. “I didn’t mean it like—you don’t owe me anything, Diana. I would never assume, not about…” his eyes darted helplessly towards the hallway and the bedroom as he scrambled to get his thoughts together.

“Steve.”

He turned back towards her and took a breath.

“That was not what I meant,” he said decisively. “I would never ask for anything that you don’t want.”

Her features melted into compassion. “I know.”

“I just want to understand…”

“I know,” she repeated. “This must all seem overwhelming to you.”

He rubbed his hand over his jaw and huffed out a humourless laugh. “That would be an understatement,” he muttered.

“I will explain everything, I promise. I’ll tell you everything you want—”

She was cut off from whatever she was about to say by the shrill of her cell phone—a sound that Steve realized with a jolt he had already grown to recognize.

Diana paused.

“You should get it,” he said, quietly.

“It’s alright. They’ll leave a message.”

He nodded.

A few seconds later the ringing stopped, but just as she opened her mouth to pick up where they had left off, it started again, seemingly more persistent than ever.

Steve barely suppressed a groan of frustration.

“Is everything in the future so disruptive?” he asked, wrinkling his nose.

Diana smiled. “Afraid so.”

“You should check what they want, it could be important,” he muttered, as the ringing started for the third time. Maybe the world needed saving, he thought.

She found his gaze.

“Won’t be long.”

He nodded, and then leaned against the counter and ran his hands down his face, his heart lodged somewhere between his ribs. His cheeks were still burning, and suddenly, Steve felt even more lost and out of place than he had in the past several days.

He wasn’t sure how long he just stood there, surrounded by coffee and cheese and bowls he had pulled out of the cupboards, no longer hungry. A few minutes, perhaps.

“I’m sorry.”

Diana’s voice had him lowering his hands again just in time to see her return to the kitchen. She was frowning a little, her gaze distracted.

Steve felt a tug of worry in his chest.

“Is everything alright?” he asked, immediately.

She lifted her eyes to his, her hand reached absently to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Yes. Yes, it is. It’s the museum. I just… I need to take care of something.”

He nodded.

“Of course.”

He watched her face soften. “I’m sorry. We’ll talk, I promise…”

But Steve was lifting his hand to stop her and shaking his head before she could finish.

“Don’t apologize,” he said, meaning it. “You don’t need to apologize for your life. It is I who should be—” He cut off, before asking, hopefully, “Can I come with?” 

She looked up at him again, lips parting for a moment in surprise, and then curving into a small smile.

“You want to come to work with me?” she clarified.

“Not to meddle or anything,” Steve said quickly. “I just…” He glanced around. “I was here all day yesterday, and I mean, you have great books and all—”

“But you were bored,” she finished for him.

“Not quite  _ bored _ ,” he hedged, grimacing a little.

Overwhelmed, he wanted to say. Lonely, knowing that she was doing her thing and didn’t need him for it, and wondering how long it would be before she came back. A little trapped too, unsure if he’d be allowed to come back inside if he chose to have a walk around the block—that concierge downstairs seemed friendly enough, but Steve still wasn’t sure what social protocols were for such things. 

Also, he didn’t have a key.

And the conversation with the chatty Barry that had left him more than a little thrown.

And yes, she had those great books and he could play all kinds of music on that massive thing in the living room—he’d tried it, last night—but he couldn’t bear just sitting here again, thinking about it all. About the things that she was likely to tell him once they had a chance to talk without interruptions, and whether they were things he wanted to hear.

She bit her lip around a smile, and it took Steve a moment to realize that she was teasing him. He felt the flush rush up his face all over again. So much for being a spy and knowing how to be a step ahead of everyone else.

What was it about her that seemed to short-circuit his brain? Well, aside from the fact that she was smart and drop-dead gorgeous and seemingly adamant to always keep him on his toes—

Yeah, that would actually explain it. Frankly, he had never stood a chance.

“Of course, you can come with me,” she reassured him.

Steve glanced towards the food spread all around them.

“Ah, this…”

Diana followed his gaze. “We’ll get something on the way,” she said decisively. “You can make me breakfast tomorrow.”

Steve looked back at her and nodded, too dazed to say anything in response to  _ that _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was super fun to work on, and while I don't yet know what to expect from Snyder's cut, at least I know that we'll be getting more Barry and that is something to look forward to, right? That being said, I will continue being mildly pissed that we haven't gotten Steve interacting with the League on screen... yet. Fingers crossed? 
> 
> Anyway, a small PSA while I'm at it: I think I can officially say that I'll be updating this story every other week, on Thursdays. I was able to post the first several chapters weekly because they were already edited and ready to go. Nothing past chapter 8 is edited yet and I'm still writing the ending, and well, I can do both only so fast. But don't worry, it's all happening and I hope you'll enjoy it :) 
> 
> As always, feedback, comments or just general ramblings are much appreciated :) (Also have you seen the [new WW84 bloopers](https://photos.app.goo.gl/Nah4GmmwWge6zwqL9)? Thank you booksthief for sharing! There is so much giggling happening there :))
> 
> Thank you for reading and I'll see you soon!


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